Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID- 19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. July 2020 Letters to the Editor e107 Table 1. Outcomes of Patients With Lung Cancer Without SARS-CoV-2 Infection Treated at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University CT and RT n ¼ 28, Immunotherapy TKI n ¼ 42, Total n ¼ 276, n (%) n ¼ 206, n (%) n (%) n (%) Treatment on schedule 0 14 (6.8) 42 (100.0) 56 (20.3) Switching from intravenous CT to 0 23 (11.2) 0 23 (8.3) an oral therapy Treatment interruption 28 (100.0) 169 (82.0) 0 197 (71.4) Reports of suspicious symptoms 3/28 (10.7) 44/169 (26.0) NA 50/197 (25.4) associated with progression CT, chemotherapy; NA, not applicable; RT, radiotherapy; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; TKI, tyrosine kinase inhibitor. CT, chemotherapy; NA, not applicable; RT, radiotherapy; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; TKI, tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Conghua Xie, MD 2. Liang W, Guan W, Chen R, et al. Cancer patients in SARS- Department of Radiation and Medical Oncology CoV-2 infection: a nationwide analysis in China. Lancet Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University Oncol. 2020;21:335–337. 3. Yu J, Ouyang W, Chua MLK, Xie C. SARS-CoV-2 trans- Wuhan, People’s Republic of China mission in cancer patients of a tertiary hospital in Hubei Key Laboratory of Tumor Biological Behaviors Wuhan [e-pub ahead of print]. JAMA Oncol. https://doi. Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2020.0980, accessed April 25, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China 2020. Hubei Clinical Cancer Study Center 4. Zhang H, Huang Y, Xie C. Treatment and outcome of a Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University patient with lung cancer infected with severe acute res- Wuhan, People’s Republic of China piratory syndrome coronavirus-2. J Thorac Oncol. 2020;15:e63–e64. References 5. Meng H, Guo X, Sun D, et al. Genomic profiling of driver 1. Russano M, Citarella F, Vincenzi B, Tonini G, Santini D. gene mutations in Chinese patients with non-small cell Coronavirus disease 2019 or lung cancer: what should we lung cancer. Front Genet. 2019;10:1008. treat? J Thorac Oncol. 2020;15:e105. lung resections for lung cancer and over 90 surgical explo- Lessons Already Learnt rations of the mediastinum per year. In early March, the From the Coronavirus commission in charge of the hospital organization during Disease 2019 Pandemic the pandemic restricted the outpatient clinic to the day hospital for oncohematologic treatments, and also restricted To the Editor: surgical activities to priority oncologic operations. However, The first patient with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID- with the exponential increase of patients with COVID-19, the 19) in Spain was registered on January 31, 2020. Since outpatient clinics and the postsurgical recovery rooms have then, the escalating growth of the disease has affected had to be transformed into hospital wards and intensive more than 150,000 patients, has caused over 15,000 care units, respectively, and the respirators in the operating deaths, and a similar number of health professionals rooms have had to be used for patients with COVID-19. The have been infected. As of April 10, 2020, Spain has the result is that no surgical procedure, except for emergency highest number of patients in Europe and the third cases, can be performed, and no new patients can be highest number of deaths in the world.1 accommodated in the outpatient clinics. The thoracic surgery service of our 400-bed hospital Our hospital is like a casualty hospital; all wards are serves a population of 1.2 million, and performs about 120 filled with patients with COVID-19. Nearly 300 health professionals have been infected, and more are in quar- antine for having been in close contact with infected pa- Address for correspondence: José Sanz-Santos, MD, PhD, Department tients or colleagues. Those who can still work are devoted of Pulmonology, Hospital Universitari Mútua Terrassa, Plaça Dr. exclusively to patients with COVID-19. Some patients have Robert 5, Terrassa 08221, Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: jsanzsantos@ mutuaterrassa.cat been externalized in a nearby hotel because there was no ª 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. room in the hospital. Pulmonologists, thoracic surgeons, Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. and oncologists, who usually meet in tumor boards, are ISSN: 1556-0864 now working as part of improvised medical teams https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtho.2020.04.012 attending infected patients. There is only one thoracic e108 Letters to the Editor Journal of Thoracic Oncology Vol. 15 No. 7 surgeon who controls the chest tubes and performs tra- Network of Centers for Biomedical Research in cheostomies. Tumor boards are now conducted virtually if Respiratory Diseases (CIBERES) there is a need to discuss some patients. The numbers in Lung Cancer Group surgical waiting lists and of patients waiting to be diag- Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain nosed are increasing. The consequences of delays are difficult to quantify, but most likely will jeopardize the fate Ramón Rami-Porta, MD, PhD, FETCS of many patients. The workload, once we can resume Network of Centers for Biomedical Research in normal activities, will be enormous. Respiratory Diseases (CIBERES) The COVID-19 pandemic may not be the only disease Lung Cancer Group that we will have to face in our professional lives. Should Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain there be another one, all measures should be taken to keep Department of Thoracic Surgery a section of the hospital clean so that the regular activities Hospital Universitari Mútua Terrassa, University of can continue for as long as possible. Sooner or later, pa- Barcelona tients will have to be transferred to makeshift hospitals. If Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain this were done in the early phase of the disease,2 normal activities could be continued for much longer and priority patients with cancer would be one of those to benefit from Sergi Call, MD, PhD, FETCS timely treatment. The early testing of health personnel Department of Thoracic Surgery and patients, coupled with the use of adequate Hospital Universitari Mútua Terrassa, University of protective gear, would prevent the dissemination of Barcelona disease in the hospital, which has been catastrophic in Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain our case. These measures would reduce the number of Department of Morphological Sciences infections among the health care personnel, would Unit of Human Anatomy and Embryology maintain cleanliness in areas of the hospital, and would Medical School, Autonomous University of Barcelona increase the capacity to continue the regular activities Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain involving patients without COVID-19. References José Sanz-Santos, MD, PhD 1. Johns Hopkins University and Medicine. COVID-19 dash- Department of Pulmonology board by the Centers for Systems and Engineering (CSSE). Hospital Universitari Mútua Terrassa, University of https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html. Accessed April 10, 2020. Barcelona 2. Thoracic Surgery Outcomes Research Network, Inc. Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain COVID-19 guidance for triage of operations for thoracic Department of Medicine malignancies: a consensus statement from Thoracic Sur- Medical School, University of Barcelona gery Research Network. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg, in Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain press. neurotrophic tyrosin kinase receptor (NTRK) fusion Challenges in the testing as new part of diagnostic routine workup in Diagnosis of NTRK Fusion- advanced NSCLC.1 Because NTRK-targeted therapy is Positive Cancers approved and highly active, many oncologists are now ordering tests, and laboratories are challenged with the To the Editor: implementation of suitable methods.2,3 These include In a recent issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the immunohistochemistry (IHC), fluorescence in situ National Lung Cancer Roundtable recommended hybridization (FISH), polymerase chain reaction, and next-generation sequencing (NGS) using DNA or RNA. Each method has advantages and disadvantages.4,5 Address for correspondence: Oliver Gautschi, MD, University of Bern Our center is participating in a diagnostic study for and Department of Medical Oncology, Cantonal Hospital Lucerne, Spitalstrasse, 6000 Lucerne, Switzerland. E-mail: oliver.gautschi@ patients with previously untreated, advanced adenocar- luks.ch cinoma of the lung. This study (NEOlung, NEO New ª 2019 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Oncology, Cologne, Germany) is prospectively comparing Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. the performance of two DNA-based NGS test panels for ISSN: 1556-0864 actionable driver mutations in tissue (NEOplus) and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtho.2019.05.001 blood (NEOliquid). In 2018, NTRK1 was added to the