Dealing with lung cancer in the COVID-19 scenario (A review)

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which has caused the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), first appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan (China) and quickly spread worldwide and has since been assigned a pandemic status. This affected the worlds' social interactions, including within medical practices, thus interfering with routine treatments for a variety of diseases including cancer. Different studies have addressed the fact that patients with cancer are often immunocompromised, making them more susceptible to infections. Since COVID-19 frequently causes respiratory distress, patients with lung cancer are considered to be a high-risk group. Genes that have been indicated to mediate viral entry into host cells such as angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and transmembrane protease serine 2 are expressed in the lung tissue, a fact that could partially explain COVID-19 pathogenesis and lung involvement. Therefore, the current study offers a disease overview including molecular aspects behind the infection and provide a perspective on already published Chinese data plus recommendations for the management of lung cancer patients according to the two main lung cancer types and stages: non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer. This review aimed to add to the collective effort of selecting the most appropriate guidelines to follow for the treatment of these patients.