Presented by: Mafalda Martins Sousa (mafaldajmsousa@gmail.com)
Introduction
The early diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients is crucial in order to improve the prognosis. Multiple screening methods are nationally implemented. However the COVID-19 pandemic had a serious impact on the performance of the national health system: patients are afraid to go to the hospitals and, during the first lockdown, the programmed clinical activity was markedly reduced or suspended. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with pharyngolaryngeal cancer.
Materials and Methods
Retrospective study of successive patients that underwent suspension laryngoscopy with biopsy, in a Tertiary Hospital, between January 2019 and December 2020. Patients whose result revealed a malignant neoplasm were included. Those with occult head and neck cancer were excluded.
Results
In a total of 108 patients, 48 patients were included due to pharyngolaryngeal neoplasia. 62.5% of the patients were evaluated before the COVID-19 pandemic. The average age was 60.77 years (40–80) and 45 patients were male, without significant differences between groups. The most common antecedents were smoking in 54.2% and smoking and heavy alcohol consumption in 27.1%. During the pandemic, 66.7% of the patients had symptoms for more than 6 months (vs 50% before the pandemic; p = 0.04). A stage ≥T3 was found in 83.3% of the patients during the pandemic (vs 53.3% previously; p < 0.05). Patients who had symptoms for more than 6 months had a higher tumor stage (p = 0.03). Before the pandemic, 66.3% of the patients underwent surgical treatment (vs 33.3% during the pandemic; p = 0.04).
Conclusions
This study demonstrates that during the COVID-19 pandemic, oncologic patients took longer to seek medical care, which translated into a higher tumor stage and, consequently, in more patients being treated with chemotherapy/radiotherapy instead of surgery. Thus, it is crucial to raise awareness to the importance of timely diagnosis, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.