The impact of COVID-19 on nonmelanoma skin cancer: the experience of an Irish dermatology department. Comment on: 'Influence of Covid-19 confinement on the size of malignant skin tumours surgically removed at a Spanish hospital'

Wolinska, Anna; Murray, Gregg R.; Bowe, Stephanie; Collins, Sinéad; Feighery, Clióna; Murad, Aizuri

doi:10.1111/ced.15225

Cited by 5 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Many parts of the world have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks, with policy and government authorities implementing many violent isolation or containment procedures. Then, outbreaks brought substantial disruption to dermatology services through a reduction in skin cancer referrals, clinic capacity and cancellation of elective procedures 24–26. The modifications in healthy-looking behaviours and the availability of essential diagnostic services resulting from national pandemic processes will result in a marked negative impact on patient outcomes such as cost-related treatments and, consequently, an enormous number of additional deaths from cancer 27 28.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Then, outbreaks brought substantial disruption to dermatology services through a reduction in skin cancer referrals, clinic capacity and cancellation of elective procedures. [24][25][26] The modifications in healthy-looking behaviours and the availability of essential diagnostic services resulting from national pandemic processes will result in a marked negative impact on patient outcomes such as cost-related treatments and, consequently, an enormous number of additional deaths from cancer. 27 28 Although several diseases have changed and various reactions have been related to COVID-19 vaccination, the vaccine is the primary weapon against COVID-19.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis of patients with skin cancer: a systematic review protocol

et al. 2023

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IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has changed aspects of patient care in the many scheduled medical activities, restricted access to healthcare facilities, and affected the diagnosis and organisation of patients with other health problems, specifically skin cancer. Skin cancer, the uninhibited progress of atypical skin cells, happens with unrepaired DNA genetic faults that lead them to multiply and create malignant tumours. Currently, dermatologists perform skin cancer diagnosis based on their specialised experience using the results of pathological tests from the skin biopsy. Sometimes, some specialists advise sonography imaging to check the skin tissue as a non-invasive method. The outbreak has led to postponements in the treatment and diagnosis of patients with skin cancer, including diagnostic delays because of limitations of diagnostic capacities and delays in referring patients to the physician. The purpose of this review is to improve our understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the diagnosis of patients with skin cancer and conduct a scoping review to identify whether routine skin cancer diagnoses are affected by the persistent incidence of COVID-19.Methods and analysisThe structure of research was compiled using Population/Intervention/Comparison/Outcomes/Study Design and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. First, we will find the main keywords to capture scientific studies related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis of skin cancer: COVID-19 and skin neoplasms. To warrant sufficient coverage and identify potential articles, we will search the combination of four electronic databases PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science and EMBASE, and ProQuest from 1 January 2019 until 30 September 2022. The screening, selection and data extraction of studies will be performed by two independent authors, who will then assessed the quality of the included studies according to Newcastle–Ottawa Scale.Ethics and disseminationAs this study will be a systematic review without human participants’ involvement, no formal ethical assessment is required. Findings will be presented at conferences related to this field and will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed journal.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42022361569.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis of patients with skin cancer: a systematic review protocol

et al. 2023

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“…The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nonmelanoma skin cancers: report of a Southern Italy referral centre Dear Editor, The COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected healthcare systems all over the world, with a negative impact on patient management, and different preventive measures were used in different countries and centres in order to ensure continuity of care. 1 In this context, we read with great interest the articles published recently in Clinical and Experimental Dermatology by Wolinska et al 2 and Conde-Taboada et al 3 focusing on the impact that COVID-19 pandemic had on the diagnosis, prognosis and management nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC). In particular, the two reports showed contrasting results on the number of diagnoses of NMSC.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the two reports showed contrasting results on the number of diagnoses of NMSC. 1,2 We report data from our centre on the impact that COVID-19 had on NMSC diagnosis, management and prognosis of NMSC. Patients referred to our dermatological centre with NMSCs from 10 March 2019 to 9 March 2022 were included in the study.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Hence, our results are in line with those reported by Conde-Taboada et al, 3 who also reported no significant differences in NMSC features before, during and after the COVID-19 emergency, but in contrast with the findings reported by Wolinska et al, 2 who found increased rates of both high-risk SCCs and high-risk BCCs from 2019 to 2020. 2,3 The impact of COVID-19 era had variable effects on NMSCs in different dermatological centres, probably due to the different restrictions and measures used in different countries to address the emergency. 4,5 We observed that most countries reported a significant reduction in faceto-face visits during the lockdown period, except for oncological conditions, which resulted in the development of teledermatology services to guarantee continuity of care for patients, reducing as much as possible the risk of infection.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nonmelanoma skin cancers: report of a Southern Italy referral centre

Ruggiero

Fornaro

Guerrasio

et al. 2022

Clinical and Experimental Dermatology

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Reducing the treatment burden of keratinocyte cancers requiring referral to plastic surgery: Lessons from lockdown

Drumm

Lynch

O’Donnell

et al. 2023

JEADV Clinical Practice

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BackgroundKeratinocyte cancers are increasing in incidence in Ireland and are more common in older age, necessitating multidisciplinary specialist input and treatment often is a greater burden for patients. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) allowed us to restructure our interspecialty treatment pathways to reduce healthcare contact for patients.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to establish whether a revised interspecialty pathway reduced the time‐to‐treatment completion (days) and treatment burden (defined as total healthcare encounter days).MethodsPatients with keratinocyte cancer under the care of dermatology and plastic surgery at St Vincent's University Hospital Dublin from July to December 2020 inclusive were identified in the Hospital‐Inpatient Enquiry database. Treatment burden was captured as the number of total days with a healthcare encounter and time‐to‐treatment completion was captured as the time from initial dermatology review to complete excision by plastic surgery.ResultsForty patients with 49 keratinocyte cancers were referred by dermatology to plastic surgery from July to December 2020. Thirty‐nine patients with 48 keratinocyte cancers were included in the analysis. The new referral pathway reduced the time‐to‐treatment completion from a mean of 164 to 75 days (p = 0.04). Treatment burden reduced from a mean of 5.4 to 3.5 (p = 0.002) total healthcare encounter days.ConclusionsMultidisciplinary input to establish a more efficient referral pathway for patients with keratinocyte cancer has successfully reduced the time‐to‐treatment completion and the treatment burden for our patients. This approach reduced the risk of exposure to COVID‐19 for patients and frees up valuable healthcare resources to treat these increasingly frequent malignancies.

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The impact of COVID-19 on nonmelanoma skin cancer: the experience of an Irish dermatology department. Comment on: 'Influence of Covid-19 confinement on the size of malignant skin tumours surgically removed at a Spanish hospital'

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis of patients with skin cancer: a systematic review protocol

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis of patients with skin cancer: a systematic review protocol

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nonmelanoma skin cancers: report of a Southern Italy referral centre

Reducing the treatment burden of keratinocyte cancers requiring referral to plastic surgery: Lessons from lockdown

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