Management of patients with acute leukemia during the COVID-19 outbreak: practical guidelines from the acute leukemia working party of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the novel coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China. It causes an infection named Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and is now spreading worldwide. Scarce data are available on patients with hematological malignancies. Although some recommendations for management of those with solid cancer and hematologic neoplasms have been published, those guidelines are general and more specific ones may be required for individual types of malignancies. This is particularly the case for acute leukemia (AL) patients who suffer from a profound and long-lasting humoral and cellular immune deficiency. Moreover, AL patients under intensive chemotherapy are at a high risk of requiring ICU care, and of mortality in case of complications. Therefore, special attention should be paid to this specific population during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Here, we summarize some recommendations to help AL patients’ management in the current situation. The aims are to minimize the requirement for ICU admission, without compromising the patient’s chance of being adequately treated.