Strategies to successfully prevent COVID-19 outbreak in vulnerable uro-oncology patient population

PURPOSE: As COVID-19 pandemic persists with variants, and despite effective vaccination campaigns, breakthrough infections surge. We implemented strategies to protect vulnerable patients of the uro-oncologic outpatient clinic. We adopted proactive non-symptomatic risk reduction measures, which include non-symptomatic testing requirements for both patients and health care professionals (HCP), intensified patient tracing and contact reduction by implementation of digital health options. Here, we present our best practice example to safely guide oncology professionals and patients with metastasized genitourinary cancers through the current and future pandemics. METHODS: Solely for this purpose, we created a registry of collected data (current telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, vaccination status). We collected a nasopharyngeal swab from every patient upon presentation for treatment. We implemented bi-weekly RNA-PCR assay tests for HCP with patient contact, and limited personal contact at our facility through digital patient consultations. RESULTS: We started implementing our COVID prevention model at the beginning of the second wave in September 2020 and included 128 patients with urologic malignancies requiring systemic treatment. After COVID vaccination became available in December 2020, all of our HCP were fully vaccinated within 6 weeks and 97% of our patients (125/128) within 9 months. We performed 1410 nasopharyngeal swabs during in-house visits, thereby detecting two COVID-19 infections among our patients, who both survived and successfully continued treatment. To further reduce personal contact, half of our consultations were fully operated digitally, with 76% (97/128) of our patients participating in our digital health offers. CONCLUSION: The willingness of patients and HCPs to participate in the study allowed us to implement strict standards to prepare for the ongoing and future pandemics in outpatient cancer units. Next to general preventive measures such as frequent hand disinfection, wearing facial masks, and keeping distance, an important measure to protect vulnerable uro-oncology patients is the capability to perform virus genome sequencing to trace transmission chains.