Impact of COVID-19 on the Diagnosis and Surgical Care of Patients with Breast Cancer—a Retrospective Observational Cohort Study from Kerala, South India

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained the healthcare system worldwide. Our study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis and surgical care of patients with breast cancer in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi. This is a single-centre retrospective observational co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Indian journal of surgical oncology 2023-03, Vol.14 (1), p.6-10
Main Authors: Vijaykumar, D. K., L, Anjali Krishnan, Pavithran, Keechilat, Soman, Sumi, Jayamohanan, Hridya, Dharmarajan, Janaki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Breast cancer
Cancer surgery
Cohort analysis
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Mammography
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Observational studies
Oncology
Original
Original Article
Pandemics
Surgery
Surgical Oncology
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Summary:The COVID-19 pandemic has strained the healthcare system worldwide. Our study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis and surgical care of patients with breast cancer in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi. This is a single-centre retrospective observational cohort study conducted in a tertiary care institution intended to analyse the management of patients with breast cancer before and after the pandemic outbreak. The number of mammograms dropped from 3689 in the pre-pandemic phase to 1901 in the post-pandemic phase, whilst the number of core biopsies remained almost the same (391 before the pandemic and 367 after the pandemic). The number of new patients decreased by 57.7% (from 614 to 354). However, the number of breast cancer surgeries has remained almost the same (318 before the pandemic and 287 after the pandemic). The number of breast conservation surgeries dropped from 127 in 2019 to 93 in 2020 ( p -value = 0.01). Conversely, 24 patients underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy in 2019, and this number increased to 37 in 2020, representing a statistically significant increase ( p  = 0.04). Even during a pandemic, cancer care is possible with proper resource allocation and by adopting a multidisciplinary approach.
ISSN:0975-7651
0976-6952
DOI:10.1007/s13193-022-01610-x