Breast Cancer Management During the COVID Pandemic.

Publisher: College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan Country of Publication: Pakistan NLM ID: 9606447 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1681-7168 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 1022386X NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Coll Physicians Surg Pak Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: Karachi : College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan,

COVID-19*/epidemiology ; Breast Neoplasms*/therapy ; Breast Neoplasms*/epidemiology ; SARS-CoV-2*; Humans ; Female ; Middle Aged ; Retrospective Studies ; Turkey/epidemiology ; Adult ; Aged ; Pandemics ; Health Services Accessibility/statistics & numerical data

Objective: To explore the impact of COVID-19 among both the newly diagnosed patients and patients under follow-up for breast cancer by focusing on patients' accessibility to management and comparing the distribution of them before and during pandemic.
Study Design: Single-centric retrospective study. Place and Duration of the Study: Department of General Surgery and Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Atilim University, Medicana International Ankara Hospital, Ankara, Turkiye, from March 2018 to 2022.
Methodology: The data were collected to analyse numbers and distributions of physician visits regarding breast cancer.
Results: The mean age of patients was 55.98 ± 12.60 years. The percentages of newly diagnosed cases showed similarity (7.37% vs. 9.79%) before and during the pandemic (p = 0.18).  The number of imaging studies decreased by 53.33% in patients under follow-up (p = 0.006), despite screening tests showed a similar trend (p = 0.145). General surgery visits marked up (+44.6%), in contrast to plastic surgery visits (-42.04%, p <0.001). Patients' admissions decreased in many COVID-19 related clinics (pulmonology, emergency, internal medicine, and intensive care), but cardiology (+96.59%) and rehabilitation (+75%) admissions increased during the pandemic (p <0.001). The number of medical oncology and radiation oncology visits did not change (p >0.05).
Conclusion: Total number of physician visits was similar before and during the pandemic despite the changing distribution. While COVID-19 led to markedly rising trends of surgical, cardiological, and rehabilitative management in patients with breast cancer, falling trends were seen in other specialities except oncology which showed a plateau during two years. The falling trends of visits to pulmonology, emergency, internal medicine, and intensive care clinics may be explained by crowded COVID-19 cases.
Key Words: Breast cancer, COVID-19, Surgery, Oncology, Rehabilitation.

Date Created: 20240606 Date Completed: 20240606 Latest Revision: 20240606

20240606

10.29271/jcpsp.2024.06.732

38840361