Abstract
The diagnosis and timely treatment of cancer patients should not be compromised during
an infectious disease pandemic. The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
has serious implications on urology practice and raises particular questions for urologists
about the management of different conditions. It was recommended to cancel most of
the elective urological surgeries. Urological cancers surgeries that should be prioritized
are radical cystectomy for selective tumors, orchiectomy for suspected testicular
tumors, nephrectomy for c T3 + , nephroureterectomy for high-grade disease, and radical
adrenalectomy for tumors >6 cm or adrenal carcinoma. Most prostatectomies can be delayed
without compromising the survival rate of patients. Urological emergencies should
be treated adequately even during this pandemic. There is a potential risk of coronavirus
diffusion during minimally invasive procedures performed. It is crucial to use specific
precautions when urologists performed those type of surgeries. It was also recommended
to suspend the kidney transplantation program during the COVID-19 pandemic except
for specific cases. In this review, we discussed the triage of urological surgeries,
the risk of minimally invasive urological procedure, the kidney transplantation challenges,
the systemic therapies, intravesical instillation of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG),
endourology, teleconferencing, and telemedicine application in urology during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
COVID-19 - urology practice - oncology - pandemic - endourology - kidney transplant
