Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on treatment of colorectal cancer patients

Doua Elamin; Ilker Ozgur; Scott R Steele; Alok A Khorana; Xue Jia; Emre Gorgun

doi:10.1016/j.amjsurg.2023.01.028

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on treatment of colorectal cancer patients

Am J Surg. 2023 May;225(5):934-936. doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2023.01.028. Epub 2023 Jan 31.

Authors

Doua Elamin¹, Ilker Ozgur¹, Scott R Steele¹, Alok A Khorana², Xue Jia³, Emre Gorgun⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Colorectal Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
² Hematology and Medical Oncology, Taussig Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
³ Quantitative Health Sciences, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, USA.
⁴ Department of Colorectal Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA. Electronic address: gorgune@ccf.org.

Abstract

Background: Modifications to practice during COVID pandemic impacted health maintenance and treatment of cancer patients.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all consecutive patients presenting to our institution with a new diagnosis of colorectal cancer pre-COVID (January 2017 to December 2019) and post-COVID (January to December 2020).

Results: The total number of patients with a new diagnosis of CRC was 2196. The pre-COVID period had 1891 patients whereas post-COVID period had 305. The median number of patients diagnosed with CRC per month was 50 and 35.5 pre and post-COVID, respectively. Time to treatment initiation was similar with no difference in stage at presentation for the pre and post-COVID periods.

Conclusion: There was a significant decrease in colorectal cancer diagnosis number and rate (p < 0.01) during the COVID era with no difference in staging at diagnosis or time to treatment initiation.

Keywords: COVID; Colorectal cancer; Delay; Incidence; Staging; Treatment.

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Cognition
Colorectal Neoplasms* / therapy
Humans
Pandemics
Retrospective Studies