Abstract PO-062: Early impact of COVID-19 in cancer care: The experience of a Brazilian outpatient clinic

The first confirmed case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Latin America was reported on February 25th, 2020, in Brazil. As COVID19 disease incidence escalated in the country, management of cancer patients required immediate action and oncology clinics were urged to establish a contingency plan. We were the first oncology clinic in Brazil to install a COVID-19 Management Committee to elaborate and implement best practices to assist cancer outpatients as well as to provide a safe environment for clinical staff and other employees at the outpatient clinics. We started monitoring our staff and employees on March 13th, a day after we installed a contingency plan for COVID-19 management and WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. So far, out of 1,022 staff and employees of our group, we have registered 12.3% suspected and 3.8% confirmed COVID-19 cases, and only 1 case severe enough to require hospitalization. As COVID-19 testing is not widely available, not all patients were tested and/or we did not have access to results, as tests might have been conducted somewhere other than the clinic. Out of 98 patients with suspected COVID-19 being monitored by SCIA (ranging from 29 to 90yo), 68% were tested and 43% of these were positive. As for the monitored population (n=98), 62.6% were undergoing treatment, 31.8% tested positive, and 9.9% died due to COVID-19 (31% of the confirmed cases, matching literature data). All deaths by COVID-19 (n=9) occurred in patients above 68yo, and 77% (n=6) were undergoing cancer treatment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of COVID-19 incidence in cancer patients in Brazil. The challenges of cancer treatment in the midst of a global pandemic highlight the importance of a rapid response by institutions, where organizational structure, strategic planning, agility in guidelines implementation, and alternative ways to protect and support clinical staff, employees, and patients may be the keys to mitigate pandemic effects. Citation Format: Cinthya Sternberg, Bianca Vivas, Thamine Lessa Andrade, Ana Paula Vila Nova, Ana Paula Fernandes, Camila Alves, Adriana Alvez, Lise Hizumi, Simone Dias, Pablicio Nobre, Aknar Calabrich, Anelisa Coutinho, Alex Pimenta. Early impact of COVID-19 in cancer care: The experience of a Brazilian outpatient clinic [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer; 2020 Jul 20-22. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2020;26(18_Suppl):Abstract nr PO-062.