The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published its second set of rapid guidelines to cover the provision of radiotherapy services and bone marrow transplant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The guidelines advise clinicians on modifying care to reduce patients’ exposure to COVID-19 and how to balance the risks and benefits of treatment during the pandemic.

For delivering radiotherapy, the guideline recommends avoiding treatment if the evidence suggests there will be little to no benefit or if an alternative treatment is available, to defer radiotherapy if clinically appropriate, and if radiotherapy treatment is unavoidable, to use the shortest safe form of treatment.

The new advice on bone marrow transplant is for clinicians to consider both the severity of the disease and the post-transplant risks of COVID-19 when deciding on treatment plans.

For patients due to receive an allogenic transplant, it recommends that clinicians defer most non-urgent cases and patients with chronic blood cancers, until the pandemic has passed.

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