Introduction: Covid-19 pandemic still poses significant and overwhelming challenges to the delivery of oncological care. The aim of our study was to see if patients with breast cancer presented with higher TNM stage during post Covid-19 period and if the route of presentation through symptomatic route was higher when compared with patients diagnosed before Covid-19.
Methods: Retrospective review of all breast cancer patients diagnosed between January 2022-June 2022 ('post Covid-19') and a similar 6 months period between January 2019-June 2019 ('pre Covid-19'). We studied their TNM stage and also the route of presentation (screening programme or symptomatic clinics) during the two periods.
Results: Altogether 279 breast cancer patients were identified, 154 (55.2%) in 'post Covid-19' period and 125 (44.8%) in 'pre Covid-19' period. Higher number of cancers presented through the symptomatic route in post Covid-19 period (63% vs 53.6%, p=0.418). Patients with T3-T4 tumours were higher in 'post Covid-19' group (20.8% vs 12.8%, p=0.138). N2-N3 disease was significantly higher in 'post Covid-19 group' (7.1% vs 0.8% p=0.013). Distant metastasis was observed in 5.2% and 4.8% patients in post and pre Covid-19 group respectively (p=0.886).
Conclusion: Our study showed that there was significantly higher N2-N3 disease in post Covid-19 era. There was also an increase in T3-4 stage cancers and higher symptomatic route presentation during post Covid-19 but this was not statistically significant. This could have led to escalation in the type of surgery they required, more chance of adjuvant chemotherapy and possible reduced overall survival.
P116