Radiation Oncologists Emerge as Coronavirus’ Unlikely Sleuths

The changes in the lung scan of Gopal Bajaj’s throat cancer patient were significant enough over the last two days for the team of therapists and radiation physicists to wonder if it could be Covid-19.

“So they flagged me. I compared that scan to his last two scans, and he’s getting a Covid test now,” Bajaj, chairman and medical director of the advanced radiation oncology and proton therapy department at the Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Fairfax, Va., said in an interview.

There have been a fair number of similar anecdotal reports of doctors who administer radiation therapy to treat ...