Impact of COVID-19 on the performance of a radiation oncology department at a major comprehensive cancer centre in Poland during the first ten weeks of the epidemic.

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus rapidly altered radiotherapy service delivery around the world. AIM: The main objective of this study was to assess the impact of precautionary measures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of a radiation oncology departments and on mitigation the risk of COVID-19 contagion between and among patients and staff. METHODS: The study period was from March 15 until May 22, 2020. We evaluated total number of patients irradiated and those who initiated treatments, taking into account tumours localisations. We assessed the relationship of potential risk of contagion with patients' domiciles locations in regions with high number of COVID19 case. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The number of patients treated with radiotherapy during the study period decreased due to precautionary measures. After five weeks, the number of radiotherapy treatments began to increase. Just over half of the radiotherapy patients (53.5%) treated at the GPCC reside in the city of Poznan or in one of the ten surrounding counties where COVID19 incidence was low and reached at the end of the study period cumulative number of cases n = 204. The precautionary measures were effective qRT-PCR tests were performed in 1545 individuals (patients and hospital staff) revealing four staff members and none patient with a positive PCR result. Immunoglobulin testing was performed in 1132 individuals (patients and hospital staff). A total of 63 individuals were positive for antibodies.

BRCA1-positive breast cancers in young women from Poland.

We identified 4316 unselected incident cases of early-onset breast cancers (<51 ears of age at diagnosis) in 18 Polish hospitals between 1996 and 2003. We were able to obtain a blood sample for DNA analysis from 3472 of these (80.4%). All cases were tested for the presence of three founder mutations in BRCA1. The proportion of cases with a BRCA1 mutation was 5.7%. The hereditary proportions were higher than this for women with breast cancer diagnosed before age 40 (9%), for women with cancer of medullary or atypical medullary histology (28%), for those with bilateral cancer (29%) or with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer (13%). It is reasonable to offer genetic testing to women with early-onset breast cancer in Poland.

BRCA2 germline mutations in male breast cancer patients in the Polish population.

Breast cancer is a rare disease in men. Germ-line mutations in BRCA2 and androgen receptor (AR) genes are thought to be responsible for a proportion of male breast cancer cases. The present study was performed on a series of 37 consenting patients not selected for family history of breast/ovarian cancer. The entire coding region of the BRCA2 gene and two exons of the AR gene were analyzed for germ-line mutations to evaluate the association between BRCA2 and AR genes and male breast cancer in Poland. We identified four frameshift mutations (11%) in exons 10, 11, 17 and 18, two of them were novel: 6495del3insC and 8457insA. Three missense unclassified variants (8%) of the BRCA2 gene were also identified. The frequencies of missense alterations were examined in a set of 200 chromosomes. No alteration of the AR gene was found. We did not observe much difference in clinicopathological features between carriers and non-carriers of BRCA2 mutations. Five of 37 patients (14%) had a family history of breast cancer, in one first- or second-degree relative, among the latter was one mutation carrier. The results of this study suggest that germ-line BRCA2 mutations account for rather small proportion of male breast cancer in Poland.