Multidisciplinary tumour board
Question 6: How are multidisciplinary tumour meetings organized today? (Answer rate 405/409, 99%)
A total of 48.9% of respondents were using web-based platforms. Interestingly, when answers were stratified by the number of treated COVID-19 positive patients per hospital, no differences were seen in distribution (Fig. 3A).
Figure 3:  Multidisciplinary tumour boards. (A) Organization of multidisciplinary tumour boards stratified by impact per hospital. (B) Influence of the COVID-19 pandemic situation on multidisciplinary decisions stratified by impact per hospital. COVID-19: coronavirus disease 2019. Question 7: Are multidisciplinary decisions influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic situation? (Answer rate 400/409, 97.7%)
The majority of respondents (66%) answered that treatment decisions were not influenced by COVID-19, but multidisciplinary decisions were clearly more influenced by the situation in hospitals treating more than 100 patients with COVID-19 (Fig. 3B).
Question 8: Given the current COVID-19 crisis please select which of the following hypothetical patients you would prioritize for surgery? (Answer rate 401/409, 98%)
We provided 5 case scenarios to be triaged (Fig. 4). The majority prioritized fit and younger patients with a cancer at risk of progression. Surgical management of slowly growing and smaller cancers, especially in older patients, tended to be deferred.
Figure 4:  Distribution of the answers in prioritizing clinical scenarios (related to question 8). (A) Clustered columns of each preference choose by every participant. (B) Double-entry table with the number of answers and their ranking order according to the percentage of each answer compared to the total responses (azure column) and overall score. RUL: right upper lobe.