Direct and indirect effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on Gaucher Disease patients in Spain: Time to reconsider home-based therapies?

Objective: An analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic impact in the Spanish Gaucher Disease (GD) community is presented here.

Patients & Methods: The Spanish GD foundation (FEETEF) surveyed 113 GD patients from March 30 to April 27; all patients provided a verbal consent.

Results: 110 surveys were analyzed. The median age was 47 years old (y.o.), 31 patients were ≥ 60 y.o.; and 34% of patients reported comorbidities. 46% (51/110) of patients were treated by enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), 48 of them at hospitals; 45.1% (45/110) were on substrate reduction therapy (SRT) and 9% (10/110) receive no therapy. 25% (11/48) of ERT-hospital-based patients reported therapy interruptions, while SRT-patients did not report missing doses. No bone crises were reported. However, 50% (55/110) of patients reported being worried about their predisposition to a severe SARS-COV-2 infection and 29% (16/55) of them took anxiolytics or antidepressants for this. While 6 patients reported to have contact with an infected person, another two confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections were reported in splenectomyzed patients, one of them (a 79-year-old diabetic) died.

Conclusions: One quarter of the patients treated at hospitals reported dose interruptions. Home-based therapy may need to be considered in order to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.