Bosch Xavier, Torres Manuel, Moreno Pedro, López-Soto Alfonso
Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital Clínic, University of Barcelona, 08036 Barcelona, Spain.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2021 Nov 12;11(11):2096. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11112096.
Although COVID-19 has had dire consequences on diagnosis of cancer, little data assessing its impact on the whole range of diagnostic activity relevant to cancer are available. We examined trends in the provision of full diagnostic tests for consecutive patients with suspected cancer referred to an academic hospital-based Quick Diagnosis Unit from January 2019 to December 2020. As weekly volumes declined, waiting times for endoscopic, imaging and biopsy/cytology procedures increased steeply during the COVID-impacted period (26 February-28 April 2020). The average weekly increase compared with the same period in 2019 was substantial for invasive procedures requiring admission (200.70%), CT scans (171.20%), GI endoscopy (161.50%), PET/CT scans (152.50%), ultrasonography (148.40%), and ambulatory biopsy/cytology procedures (111.20%). Volumes and waiting times to other procedures showed similar trends. There was a remarkable downward trend in cancer diagnosis during the COVID-impacted period, with a 54.07% reduction compared with the same weeks in 2019. Despite a modest recovery in the following months, the decline in weekly activity and cancer rates persisted until 30 December. Providing insight into how COVID-19 changed the full spectrum of diagnostic activity for suspected cancer informs resilience-building interventions to guarantee access to fast and efficient diagnostics ahead of new threats.
尽管新冠疫情对癌症诊断产生了严重后果，但目前几乎没有数据评估其对与癌症相关的全系列诊断活动的影响。我们研究了2019年1月至2020年12月期间转诊至一家学术医院的快速诊断科室的连续疑似癌症患者进行全面诊断检查的趋势。随着每周检查量的下降，在新冠疫情影响期间（2020年2月26日至4月28日），内镜检查、影像学检查以及活检/细胞学检查的等待时间急剧增加。与2019年同期相比，需要住院的侵入性检查（200.70%）、CT扫描（171.20%）、胃肠内镜检查（161.50%）、PET/CT扫描（152.50%）、超声检查（148.40%）以及门诊活检/细胞学检查（111.20%）的平均每周增幅都很大。其他检查的检查量和等待时间也呈现出类似趋势。在新冠疫情影响期间，癌症诊断数量出现了显著下降趋势，与2019年同期相比减少了54.07%。尽管在随后几个月有一定程度的恢复，但每周检查活动和癌症诊断率的下降一直持续到12月30日。深入了解新冠疫情如何改变了对疑似癌症患者的全系列诊断活动，有助于制定增强恢复力的干预措施，以确保在面对新威胁时能够获得快速有效的诊断。
