Treating Patients With Primary Musculoskeletal Tumors in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic, Alleviating the Pressure on Care-Providers

Papavasiliou Kyriakos^1*, Prodoromos Hytiroglou², Christos Papandreou³ & Tsiridis Eleftherios¹

¹Department of Academic Orthopaedic, Papageorgiou General Hospital, Aristotle University Medical School, Thessaloniki Ring Road, 56403 Nea Efkarpia, Greece
²Laboratory of Pathology & Pathological Anatomy, Aristotle University Medical School, University Campus, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece
³Department of Academic Oncology, Papageorgiou General Hospital, Aristotle University Medical School, Ring Road Thessaloniki, 56403, Greece

Dr. Papavasiliou Kyriakos, Department of Academic Orthopaedic, Papageorgiou General Hospital, Aristotle University Medical School, Thessaloniki Ring Road, 56403 Nea Efkarpia, Greece.

Keywords: Bone Sarcoma; Soft Tissue Sarcoma; Multidisciplinary Research; Connective and Soft Tissue Neoplasms; Bone Neoplasms

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most -if not all- elective orthopaedic surgery has been temporarily postponed worldwide. Patients with trauma and musculoskeletal tumors are generally excluded from this general rule. Nonetheless, during this COVID-19 outbreak, patients with primary benign and malignant tumors face the major risk of being unable to receive customary medical services in a timely fashion. The Oncological Multidisciplinary Teams need to take into account factors never considered before, when deciding on the optimal treatment of a patient with a musculoskeletal tumor. We present our local Multidisciplinary Team’s guidelines to implement additional instructions or alter existing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, in one of the largest tertiary Hospitals of our country. These guidelines are expected to assist physicians who are involved in the overall management of patients with tumors necessitating surgical intervention.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).