The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the practice of radiotherapy: A retrospective single-institution study

Chauhan, Richa; Trivedi, Vinita; Rani, Rita; Singh, Usha; Singh, Vasudha; Shubham, Santosh; Kumari, Sucheta; Uniyal, Anjali

doi:10.4103/crst.crst_255_20

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…A study by Gonnelli et al 13 for the period March end of May, shows an increase in RT treatments by 5%, which is not in accordance with our results. The Chauhan et al 9 study agrees with our results for the period from January to the end of May 2020, which were moved two months forward (the pandemic in India started two months earlier than in RS). Amador et al 14 reported the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the care of cancer patients in Spain, comparing the March-June 2019/20 periods, the number of new patients decreased by 20.8%.…”

Section: External Beam Radiotherapysupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The largest decrease in the number of EBRT patients older than 70 years by diagnosis is found in GYN (39.6%), breast (29.7%), brain (30.8%), lung (15.4%), prostate (13.1%), bone (15.1%), and skin (84%), which is in accordance with the results of the other study 9,13,17 .…”

Section: External Beam Radiotherapysupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Figure 2 clearly shows the declining trend of the regression line obtained based on the number of weekly EBRT fractions from 2019-2021 (the direction coefficient is negative). The mean weekly number of EBRT fractions delivered in period 0 was 680.5 (SD 67.4), and in period 1 was 617.1 (SD 96.4), which is in accordance with the results of the studies by Martinez et al 6 , Chauhan et al 9 , and Nierengarten 10 .…”

Section: External Beam Radiotherapysupporting

confidence: 88%

“…A greater reduction in EBRT patients between period 0 and period 1 was seen for patients aged 70 years or older compared with those aged younger than 70 years (16.3% vs. 1.6%), which is in accordance with the results of the study by Spencer et al 4 . Patients older than 70 years accounted for 33.7% and 31.8% of the total number of patients in periods 0 and 1, respectively, which is more than the results of the Chauhan et al 9 study (about 5% for the first half of period 1).…”

Section: External Beam Radiotherapymentioning

confidence: 53%

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Covid-19's impact on radiotherapy in the Republic of Srpska

et al. 2022

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Background/Aim. The aim of this epidemiological study was to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the weekly number of external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) fractions and monthly brachytherapy (BT) applications, without intentional hypofractionation. We also investigated how the pandemic affected the number of EBRT patients younger and older than 70 years. Methods. The Affidea Radiotherapy Center, Banja Luka (BL), provides radiotherapy (RT) to the population (1.15 million) of the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina). We analyzed the period of 14 months before the onset and the same period during the Covid-19. Results. The average weekly number of EBRT fractions from January 2019 to the end of February 2020, was 680.5 (SD 67.4), and from March 2020 to the end of April 2021, it was 617.1 (SD 96.4). During April 2020, the weekly number of the EBRT decreased by 67.9 % compared to the same period in 2019, while in March 2021 it fell by 42.4 %. Paired samples T-test showed that the occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic had a statistically significant effect t(60)=4.627, p<0.05, on the reduction in the number of weekly EBRT fractions in BL RT center. When comparing EBRT patients over 70 years old to those fewer than 70 years old, the decrease was 16.3 % vs. 1.6 %, respectively. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic had a statistically significant effect (Z=-2.42, p=0.016) on reducing the number of monthly BT applications. Conclusion. A statistically significant decline in EBRT and BT was observed in BL RT Centre for the first fourteen months of the pandemic. The "waves" of the pandemic "closed" the medical wards needed for the diagnosis and therapy of oncology patients and converted them into Covid-19. Therefore, some oncology patients who would have had indication for RT never received it.

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Section: External Beam Radiotherapysupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: External Beam Radiotherapysupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: External Beam Radiotherapysupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: External Beam Radiotherapymentioning

confidence: 53%

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Covid-19's impact on radiotherapy in the Republic of Srpska

et al. 2022

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“…Radiation therapy is an effective and a significant mode of definitive cancer treatment with well-established accomplishment of local tumour control, especially in the treatment of localised tumours. 3,[86][87][88][89][90][91] The percentage of cancer patients receiving radiotherapy as part of their treatment during their illness has been increasing steadily with a global goal of about 50% in most developed countries. 88,92 Several studies have reported that radiotherapy of cancers can significantly prolong patient survival, improve local…”

Section: Radiation Therapymentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the oncologic care continuum: urgent need to restore patients care to pre-COVID-19 era

et al. 2021

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Background: Globally, cancer is the second leading cause of death, and it is estimated that over 18·1 million new cases are diagnosed annually. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted almost every aspect of the provision and management of cancer care worldwide. The time-critical nature of COVID-19 diagnosis and the large number of patients requiring hospitalisation necessitated the rerouting of already limited resources available for cancer services and programmes to the care of COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, the stringent social distancing, restricted in-hospital visits and lockdown measures instituted by various governments resulted in the disruption of the oncologic continuum including screening, diagnostic and prevention programmes, treatments and follow-up services as well as research and clinical trial programmes. Materials and Methods: We searched several databases from October 2020 to January 2021 for relevant studies published in English between 2020 and 2021 and reporting on the impact of COVID-19 on the cancer care continuum. This narrative review paper describes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cancer patient care continuum from screening and prevention to treatments and ongoing management of patients. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted cancer care and the management of cancer services and patients. Nevertheless, the oncology healthcare communities worldwide have done phenomenal work with joint and collaborative efforts, utilising best available evidence-based guidelines to continue to give safe and effective treatments for cancer patients while maintaining the safety of patients, healthcare professionals and the general population. Nevertheless, several healthcare centres are now faced with significant challenges with the management of the backlog of screening, diagnosis and treatment cases. It is imperative that governments, leaders of healthcare centres and healthcare professionals take all necessary actions and policies focused on minimising further system-level delays to cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment initiation and clearing of all backlogs cases from the COVID-19 pandemic in order to mitigate the negative impact on cancer outcomes.

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Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the radiotherapy and cancer patients in a tertiary health care center of assam, Northeast India: a retrospective single institution study

Baruah

Deka²,

Paul³

et al. 2022

ijmmr

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Background. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every sector of health care system including the cancer care. Objective. The purpose of the study is to analyse the impact of the current COVID‑19 pandemic on routine radiotherapy practice at a tertiary hospital of Northeast India. Methods. This is a retrospective study of all patients planned for radiotherapy at Assam Medical College, a tertiary care centre, in Assam, India from January 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020. The study samples are divided into two groups: group A – patients treated from January 1, 2020, to March 20, 2020 (pre-lockdown,) and group B – patients treated from March 21, 2020, to May 31, 2020 (lockdown). The department registration numbers of all the patients were collected from the entry register, and the respective paper files were then accessed to obtain the required data. Results. A total of 153 patients were planned for radiotherapy during the study period, of these 113 patients receiving radiotherapy in the pre-lockdown period and 40 patients receiving it in the lockdown period. The number of female patients decreased from 66 (58.40%) in the pre-lockdown period to 20 (50%) during the lockdown. The number of male patients also decreased from 47 to 20 but the proportion increased from 41.5% to 50%. The proportion of patients who completed radiotherapy was 90.8% in group B compare to 88.3% in group A. Conclusion. There was a decrease in number of cancer patients, especially female during the lockdown. The pandemic has severely disrupted every aspect of cancer care.

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The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the practice of radiotherapy: A retrospective single-institution study

Cited by 21 publications

References 15 publications

Covid-19's impact on radiotherapy in the Republic of Srpska

Covid-19's impact on radiotherapy in the Republic of Srpska

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the oncologic care continuum: urgent need to restore patients care to pre-COVID-19 era

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the radiotherapy and cancer patients in a tertiary health care center of assam, Northeast India: a retrospective single institution study

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