GÉTICA 2021

4 VII FORO DE I nmunología Traslacional e INMUNOTERAPIA DEL CÁNCER Some additional issues are side effects in pa- tients on treatment with target therapy and immunotherapy. About target therapy (espe- cially dabrafenib and trametinib), patients who develop fever higher than 37.5 without resolving after discontinuation, should per- form COVID test before to restart the treat- ment. Patients on treatment with immuno- therapy who show pneumonitis at CT scan (even without fever), should perform COVID test before start steroids. Immuno-oncologists have an important ex- perience in the management of immuno-re- lated adverse events. The hyperactivation of immune system due to the immunother- apy strategies can develop some conditions which need of immuno-suppressive drugs to reduce the harmful immune reaction. Since the acute respiratory stress syndrome COVID-19 related seems to occur from an excess of cytokine production, we focused our attention on the cytokines storm which probably lead to ARDS by COVID-19 and how to prevent or treat it. We know very well the cytokine release syndrome (CRS), one of the most prominent and well described toxicity from chimeric antigen receptor T cell ther- apy (CAR-T), as well as from some bi-spe- cific antibodies. In particular, we know the key role played by IL-6 in the pathogenesis Paolo A. Ascierto Istituto Nazionale Tumori IRCCS Fondazione Pascale. Napoli, Italy I n relation to the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), oncologists need to face some difficult situations; first of all, safety considerations about cancer patients during this pandemia. To keep safe both patients and healthy workers is the most important rule. In our daily practice we adopted a spe- cific policy about the conduct of our clinical managements of melanoma patients, in or- der to minimise the risk of any potential ex- posure. We are prioritizing patients, accord- ing to the kind of treatment and the stage of disease. In order to avoid any gathering condition which could increase the risk of infection for patients, we are optimizing ac- cess about adjuvant treatment, considering of high priority the higher risk patients, privi- leging longer infusion schedule of treatment for immunotherapy and/or selecting pa- tients with BRAF mutation for starting target therapy. Metastatic patients have the highest priority, and nothing changed in their dai- ly management except for preferring, when possible, the longer schedule of treatment in order to reduce the access in the hospital. The enrolment in clinical trials is on hold and the patients still in treatment inside clinical study are managed in the respect of GCPs as well as possible. Experience in using oncology drugs in patients with COVID-19