COVID-19
5 June 2020
COVID-19
Prof Hisham Mehanna has recently led an international collaboration to develop consensus guidelines on head and neck cancer practice in acutely resource-constrained settings, such as COVID-19, that have been accepted for publication by Lancet Oncology.
The recommendations were co-ordinated by the Head and Neck Cancer International Group, which is a collaboration of 20 national clinical trials groups in head and neck cancer. Hisham is the Chair of the group.
They brought together a consortium of 35 international and national bodies dealing with the management of head and neck cancer, and undertook a Delphi consensus process online with nominees from each of the bodies. The three rounds were undertaken and analysed in less than 2 weeks and the paper was then written and submitted for endorsement by 39 international bodies within a week after that. The paper has now been accepted by Lancet Oncology and is due to come out in the middle of June.
These guidelines have been endorsed by 39 different national and international bodies from California to China and Sweden to South Africa, and are now adopted as the international guidelines for the COVID-19 pandemic, and other acute disasters in future.
