Immunocompromised Patients

As the enormity of the COVID-19 pandemic sinks in and as we feel its impact across the globe, join us as we discuss mitigation, solutions and new discoveries and approaches to help you better prepare to serve your patients across all specialties. In this episode, we focus on immunocompromised patients.

Questions:

From David Duong, MD, from the Harvard Primary Care Center:

Should the safe default be to recommend testing for COVID-19 if they have any URI +/- diarrheal symptoms since the implications could be huge for them? Or is there additional screening that we should do before recommending to test? What do you do if tests are extremely limited/not available?

From Derek Raghavan, MD, PhD, from the Levine Cancer Institute:

How do you balance long-term outcomes from dose-intense regimens vs. the immediate threats of myelosuppression with COVID-19 hovering around?

What is your view of broad-based antiviral therapies in association with cancer treatments as a protective adjunct, given the absence of hard data?

Are you routinely prescribing chloroquine and similar compounds and why/why not?

From John Sweetenham, MD, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center:

One question comes to mind immediately: We are applying a symptom screen for our patients on entry to the cancer center and are now likely to add a temperature screen to that process. I would love to know what threshold temperature we should consider a positive screen in immunocompromised patients. It’s a simple question but of huge practical importance and I can’t find a good answer anywhere.

From Shelley Johns, PsyD, HSPP, ABPP, from Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center:

Does a history of cancer -- and treatment with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, endocrine therapy and/or any targeted therapies -- raise a person’s risk of contracting coronavirus or their health complications from it?

From Deepak Bhatt, MD, from Brigham and Women's Hospital:

How should we deal with a health care worker who gets a needlestick from a COVID-positive patient?

From Carl Pepine, MD, from the University of Florida Health:

The most immunocompromised patients that we see in cardiology are those who have had heart transplantation for heart failure. What are the recommendations for patients who have had a heart transplant after they leave the hospital?

We’d love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to mailto:covid19podcast@healio.com. Be sure to check Healio.com/coronavirus for daily updates on the pandemic and follow us on Twitter @InfectDisNews and @GoHealio.

Disclosures: Pai reports serving on the advisory boards of Abbvie and Gilead Sciences.