The centres, which include the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Cancer Centre, form an alliance known as Cancer Core Europe (CCE), and together represent around 60,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients each year and conduct more than 1,500 clinical trials.
In a Perspective published in Nature Medicine, CCE researchers describe how their centres have been forced by the current pandemic to drastically revise and reorganise their patient care and scientific research, while maintaining the same high quality of care.
The specialist centres not only want to prevent the spread of the virus in general, but also to protect patients with cancer whose disease and treatment make them especially vulnerable to complications if infected.
“COVID-19 has created a unique challenge: how to adjust cancer management to minimise the disruption caused to cancer care by the pandemic,” said Professor Carlos Caldas, co-lead author of the article, member of the senior management team of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, and Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.
“Our medical staff across all disciplines have been truly amazing at very quickly producing COVID-19-adjusted treatment guidelines.”
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge