Chemotherapy in Lung Cancer and COVID-19 Comorbidity Relationships: A Computational Systems Biology Approach
Corona-viruses are a large family of viruses that cause severe respiratory infections in humans.Over the last two decades, three corona-viruses have crossed animals, were transmitted to humans: the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus (SARS), the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus (MERS), and the SARS-CoV-2, a novel acute and deadly coronavirus (NIH,2022). SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, China and has caused a pandemic and public health emergency (WHO). According to Djaharuddin et.al, the high mortality of patients infected with COVID-19 is related to their comorbid condition (2021). Patients with pre-existing health conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer are at risk of contracting the virus, and have an increased risk of death (Jee et.al, 2020). Recent research has focused on finding the potential risk of each type of cancer to SARSCoV-2, the findings suggest that COVID-19 and lung cancer are related in terms of symptoms,diagnosis and treatment (Nan et.al, 2021). One of the main treatments for lung cancer is chemotherapy Oncologists have been focused on patient management during COVID-19 in particular patients with comorbidities (Haineala, 2021). A few research has focused on finding an association between COVID-19 severity and chemotherapeutic agents. Thus, an interesting approach would be to check for associations between chemotherapeutic agents/chemotherapy and the severity of COVID-19 through common targets.