St. Jude Starts Data-Sharing for Kids With Cancer and Covid-19

Health-care providers will be able to share data and treatment options for pediatric cancer patients who have contracted Covid-19 using a new resource center launched by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the International Society of Paediatric Oncology, the hospital told Bloomberg Law.

Physicians will be able to access up-to-date information, including summaries of the number of cases by country and treatment, through the center. The project’s goal is to develop guidelines for treating pediatric cancer patients who also have Covid-19, Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, director of St. Jude Global, said in an interview.

The guidelines will also need to address how to modify cancer treatment in areas where the virus is rampant and how hospitals handle some of the issues that arise with Covid-19 for pediatric cancer patients, he said.

“We want to be able to capture all the cases of children with cancer affected by COVID-19 and let that inform our decision-making,” Kathy Pritchard-Jones, the society’s president, said in a statement. “The registry is a high-level, first-pass effort to get the information quickly, because what we find out now can guide future interventions.”

People with cancer or compromised immune systems are more susceptible to Covid-19. “Covid seems to affect children at a lower frequency than adults,” but it’s not clear how that will translate to children who are immunocompromised, Rodriguez-Galindo said.

There is already anecdotal evidence in Asia, Europe, and South America of a “good number” of cases of Covid-19 occurring in children with cancer, Rodriguez-Galindo said.

The database will quantify what is happening with Covid-19 and children with cancer by including patients’ demographic data; their cancer diagnoses, symptoms, and treatments; their locations; and their outcomes at both 30 and 60 days.

“We want to be able to articulate this global response” for pediatric cancer patients with Covid-19, Rodriguez-Galindo said.

The database will be publicly available for anyone to access and available for research, Rodriguez-Galindo said. The project will also include webinars with experts and a forum for doctors to discuss care, he said.