A Single-Center Audit of Symptomatic Breast Cancer Patient Referrals During COVID-19 Pandemic Restrictions

BackgroundRecommendations to balance cancer care with patient and hospital staff safety have been issued to hospitals during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Concerns have been raised that service restrictions could jeopardize effective cancer management. Thus, this study aimed to conduc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) CA), 2022-06, Vol.14 (6), p.e26038-e26038
Main Authors: Tokode, Olukayode M, Rastall, Sarah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Audit departments
Breast cancer
Clinics
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Demographics
General Surgery
Hospitals
Mammography
Medical diagnosis
Medical records
Medical referrals
Oncology
Pandemics
Pathology
Patients
Statistical analysis
Telemedicine
Variables
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:BackgroundRecommendations to balance cancer care with patient and hospital staff safety have been issued to hospitals during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Concerns have been raised that service restrictions could jeopardize effective cancer management. Thus, this study aimed to conduct an audit to verify this proposition.MethodsWe conducted an audit comparing two-week wait (2ww) breast cancer referrals in our center between May and July 2019 and 2020. The primary endpoints were changes in the overall referral rates, differences in the waiting time, and breast cancer diagnosis rates between the two cohorts. Group differences were evaluated using the chi-square test (χ2). A p-value of
ISSN:2168-8184
2168-8184
DOI:10.7759/cureus.26038