Monitoring patients with head and neck cancer for flu-like symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: To capture and monitor flu-like symptoms in relation to the clinical characteristics and the oncologic treatment of a large head and neck cancer (HNC) patient cohort during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Methods: Patients were monitored through by 2 rounds of interviews. Clinical characteristics of patients with no symptoms (group 0) and of those reporting ⩾1 (group A), ⩾3 (group B), or ⩾5 symptoms (group C) were analyzed. Patients with ⩾1 symptom at both interviews were defined as group A2.

Results: Five hundred patients with HNC were analyzed. A higher frequency of patients with the following characteristics was observed in group A vs group 0: active treatment (40% vs 24%, = 0.0002), gastrostomy (6% vs 2%, = 0.027), recent active treatment (48% vs 29%, < 0.0001), and higher number of concomitant medications ( = 0.01). A lower median age was observed in group B vs group no-B (patients with fewer than three symptoms) (59 vs 63.55 years, = 0.016) and in group A2 vs group no-A2 (patients without at least one symptom at both interviews) (56 vs 63 years, = 0.021); patients in group B received more recent active treatment than those in group no-B and in group A2 vs those in group no-A2 ( = 0.024 and 0.043, respectively); patients in group B had a lower body mass index than those in group no-B (22.4 vs 23.93 kg/m, = 0.0066).

Conclusions: This work is based on patient-reported symptoms and signs independently of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing. In the future, these results might serve as a a benchmark for clinicians triaging and managing patients with HNC during infectious outbreaks involving flu-like symptoms.