COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) - Cochrane Gynaecological, Neuro-oncology and Orphan Cancers
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is caused by a new strain of Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) discovered in 2019, and not previously identified in humans. Common symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. On March 11 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the current COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic.
For authoritative information about the science underpinning the epidemic see: https://coronavirusexplained.ukri.org/en.
At this time, it is more important than ever to work together. Cochrane GNOC have gathered important resources, guidance and advice statements from international organizations and societies related to COVID-19, and the management of patients with gynaecological cancers or neuro-oncology. We will publish links on this page as they become available. If you would like us to link to a resource that is not currently on our list, please contact us.
Cochrane has launched a COVID-19 Study Register https://covid-19.cochrane.org/ This is a freely-available, continually-updated, annotated reference collection of human studies on COVID-19, including interventional, observational, diagnostic, prognostic, epidemiological, and economic designs. References are added from three primary data sources: ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), and PubMed. Secondary data sources are currently under evaluation for unique content and data quality. New records will be added continually to enrich the data to improve usability.
Guidance across themes:
- NICE guidelines: https://www.nice.org.uk/covid-19
- Public Health England - Guidance COVID-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) (02/04/2020) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-infection-prevention-and-control/covid-19-personal-protective-equipment-ppe
- National Health Service (NHS) - Government Advice on PPE, Infection Control, Aerosol Generation from NHS (27/03/2020) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-infection-prevention-and-control
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - CDC recommendations on how to extend the life of N95 masks (27/03/2020) https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hcwcontrols/recommendedguidanceextuse.html
- ESMO COVID-19: supporting oncology professionals https://www.esmo.org/newsroom/covid-19-and-cancer
- Royal College of Radiologists: https://www.rcr.ac.uk/college/coronavirus-covid-19-what-rcr-doing/coronavirus-covid-19-resources/coronavirus-covid-19-0
Guidance for Gynaecological Cancers:
The following are largely UK-based guidance for management of gynaecological oncology conditions, designed to support clinicians with regard to decision-making when weighing up risks and balances of treating patients versus increased risks form COVID-19.
Specific support for patients can be accessed through gynaecological cancer charities. Please get in touch with the team with details for other non-UK-based charities able to offer telephone support at this time.
- GO Girls https://www.gogirlssupport.org (gynae onc cancers)
- Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust https://www.jostrust.org.uk/coronavirus
- Macmillan Cancer Support https://www.macmillan.org.uk/coronavirus
Professional guidelines/frameworks during COVID-19 pandemic:
- BGCS British Gynaecological Cancer Society https://www.bgcs.org.uk/public-information/covid-19/
BGCS COVID-19 Research Grants announced. The British Gynaecological Cancer Society is pleased to announce the awards of a total of £75,000 to support research and data collection to advance cancer patient care. https://www.bgcs.org.uk/members-area/awards-grants-and-prizes/covid19-research-grants/ - BSCCP British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology
- COVID 19 Pandemic - NHSCSP Guidance for Colposcopy Services 01.04.2020 https://www.bsccp.org.uk/healthcare-professionals/professional-news/bsccp-clinical-advice-covid-19
- BSGE British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy AND RCOG Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Guidance for Neuro-oncology:
Guidance and reference documents for patients
- British Neuro-Oncology Society advice to patients with brain tumours during COVID-19 outbreak https://www.bnos.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/TBTC-advice-adult-brain-tumours-during-COVID-outbreak-BNOS_final_27.3.20.pdf
- COVID-19 guidance for children and young people with cancer undergoing treatment https://www.cclg.org.uk/coronavirus-advice
- ABN guidance on COVID-19 for neurology patients https://www.theabn.org/page/covid-19_patients
- Public Health England guidance for people, including children, who are at highest clinical risk of severe illness from coronavirus (COVID-19), and for their families, friends and carers. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19
- UK Guidance on Social Distancing. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults
- Brainstrust https://brainstrust.org.uk/covid-19-and-brain-tumour-service-provision/
- The Brain Tumour Charity : https://www.thebraintumourcharity.org/media-centre/news/charity-news/coronavirus-and-brain-tumours/
Guidance and reference documents for health professionals:
- British Neuro-Oncology Society adult neuro-oncology service provision during COVID outbreak SBNS-BNOS https://www.bnos.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Adult-neuro-oncology-service-provision-during-COVID-outbreak_SBNS-BNOS.pdf
- Association of British Neurologists Guidance on COVID-19 for people with neurological conditions, their doctors and carers. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.theabn.org/resource/collection/65C334C7-30FA-45DB-93AA-74B3A3A20293/ABN_Neurology_COVID-19_Guidance_v5_26.3.20.pdf
- Society for British Neurological Surgeons Specialty guides for patient management during the coronavirus pandemic (Clinical guide for the management of adult cancer patients during the coronavirus pandemic
https://www.sbns.org.uk/index.php/download_file/view/1644/1224/ - Society for British Neurological Surgeons Clinical guide for the management of Paediatric Neurosurgery patients during the coronavirus pandemic
https://www.sbns.org.uk/index.php/download_file/view/1682/1224/ - Society for British Neurological Surgeons Adult Neuro-Oncology Service Provision during COVID-19 outbreak https://www.sbns.org.uk/index.php/download_file/view/1646/1224/
- Adult neuro-oncology service provision during COVID outbreak_SBNS-BNO
https://www.bnos.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Adult-neuro-oncology-service-provision-during-COVID-outbreak_SBNS-BNOS.pdf - European Association of Neuro-Oncology: https://www.eano.eu/about/news/news/#eano-news-28
- SNO Society for Neuro-oncology https://soc-neuro-onc.org/SNO/News/COVID-19.aspx
Cochrane evidence
1. The Cochrane Library: Cochrane as a whole is undertaking a comprehensive programme of work to provide evidence for those caring for Covid-19 patients, and has made the Cochrane Library temporarily freely available to all (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/ ).
2. Cochrane resources and news: Cochrane has an extensive collection of resources related to COVID-19 and these are available here (https://www.cochrane.org/coronavirus-covid-19-cochrane-resources-and-news ).
3. Cochrane Special Collections relating to coronavirus have been developed:
- Evidence relevant to critical care (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/collections/doi/SC000039/full ). Also available in Simplified Chinese, German, Farsi, French, Japanese, Bahasa Malaysia, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
- Infection control and prevention measures (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/collections/doi/SC000040/full ). Also available in Simplified Chinese, Farsi, French, Japanese, Bahasa Malaysia, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
- Effective options for quitting smoking during the pandemic (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/collections/doi/SC000042/full ).
4. Cochrane COVID Rapid Reviews. Cochrane is engaging with a range of stakeholders to build a bank of important questions emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The first 60 questions underwent a very early prioritisation process to allow work to begin immediately on urgent reviews. The remaining questions will undergo a rapid prioritisation process with stakeholders. The list of suggested topics can be found here. Some of these are underway, others will be prioritized for later completion. If you would like to submit a question on coronavirus, you can do so here (https://covidrapidreviews.cochrane.org/submit ).
Commonly asked questions to Cochrane about COVID-19 rapid reviews:
- How do I subscribe to the distribution list for future priority setting? Please send an email to support@cochrane.org who will add you to the distribution list. The priority setting will be re-run at regular intervals as new questions become available.
- How do I volunteer to be involved in the rapid reviews? If you have a review team which would be willing to take ownership for a rapid review, please contact covidrapidreviews@cochrane.org . We will be encouraging rapid review author teams to use Cochrane Task Exchange (https://taskexchange.cochrane.org/) to post tasks that require additional support.
- How do I see which rapid reviews Cochrane members are already working on? You can search the rapid review question (https://covidrapidreviews.cochrane.org/search/site )bank to identify review questions which are in progress and those which are available to author teams.
- What is a Cochrane rapid review? Rapid reviews can take many forms. The Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group has proposed the following definition: “A form of knowledge synthesis that accelerates the process of conducting a traditional systematic review through streamlining or omitting specific methods to produce evidence for stakeholders in a resource-efficient manner.” More information is available here (https://covidrapidreviews.cochrane.org/process ).
General guidance on COVID-19:
- The World Health Organization (WHO) https://www.who.int/ advice on infection control for healthcare workers can be found here (https://www.who.int/teams/risk-communication/health-sector ), and there are more coronavirus resources from WHO here.
- Evidence Aid's https://www.evidenceaid.org/ Coronavirus resources (https://www.evidenceaid.org/coronavirus-covid-19-evidence-collection/) include evidence on healthcare workers' protection and prevention management.
- Public Health England (PHE) https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england resources relating to Coronavirus can be found here (https://his.org.uk/resources-guidelines/novel-coronavirus-resources .
- The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) https://www.nice.org.uk/ are publishing a series of rapid guidelines, on the management of coronavirus, find out more here (https://www.nice.org.uk/covid-19 .
- The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) https://www.nice.org.uk/ in Oxford has a series of rapid reviews underway (https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/ ), check back often for updates.
COVID-19 trials in-progress and data from trials
For a register of COVID-19-related trials that are in-progress and may – or may not – have yet published results (links are included when results are available) please see Covid-19 TrialsTracker (http://covid19.trialstracker.net/index.html ).
Cochrane's partner Vivli (https://vivli.org/vivli-covid-19-portal /) is collecting and sharing data from COVID-19-related clinical trials (published data and individual patient data from published and unpublished trials); find out more here (https://vivli.org/vivli-covid-19-portal/ ).