Oncopathology Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Molecular Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
BMJ Open. 2022 Aug 26;12(8):e063748. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-063748.
With the exponential progress of patients with COVID-19, unexpected restrictions were directed to limit SARS-CoV-2 dissemination and imposed health-system an entire reformation to diminish transmission risk. These changes likely have caused the full range of cancer screenings and diagnosis gaps. Regardless of the recommendations, prostate cancer (PCa) screening/diagnosis programmes were momentarily postponed. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing has been an inexpensive, low-invasive and relatively precise means of detection for PCa screening that would improve the uncovering of any type of PCa. Unfortunately, a decrease in PSA screening would significantly decrease PCa detection, with non-negligible growth in PCa-specific death. This review is designed to improve our understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the screening and diagnosis of patients with PCa.
This systematic review will be reported in accordant with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidance. A comprehensive search has been executed through five main electronic databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase and ProQuest until 1 March 2022. Besides, grey literature, preprint studies and references of included studies will be searched. The main keywords have been used to perform the search strategy: COVID-19, prostatic neoplasms. All the relevant studies that met the inclusion criteria will be screened, selected and then extracted data by two independent authors. The quality assessment of the included studies will be performed by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. In case of any disagreement between the two authors in selecting, extracting data and assessing the quality of included studies, it will be resolved via consensus and checked by the third author.
As this study will be a systematic review without human participants' involvement, there will be no requirement for ethics approval. Findings will be presented at conferences and in a peer-reviewed journal.
CRD42021291656.
随着 COVID-19 患者数量的指数级增长，为了限制 SARS-CoV-2 的传播，对医疗系统实施了意想不到的限制措施，对其进行了全面改革，以降低传播风险。这些变化可能导致了癌症筛查和诊断的全面差距。尽管有相关建议，前列腺癌（PCa）筛查/诊断计划还是被暂时推迟了。前列腺特异性抗原（PSA）检测是一种廉价、低侵袭性和相对精确的 PCa 筛查方法，可以提高任何类型 PCa 的检出率。不幸的是，PSA 筛查的减少会显著降低 PCa 的检出率，导致 PCa 特异性死亡人数显著增加。本综述旨在提高我们对 COVID-19 大流行对 PCa 患者筛查和诊断的影响的认识。
本系统综述将按照系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目进行报告。通过五个主要电子数据库：PubMed/MEDLINE、Web of Science、Scopus、Embase 和 ProQuest 进行了全面搜索，直到 2022 年 3 月 1 日。此外，还将搜索灰色文献、预印本研究和纳入研究的参考文献。主要关键词已用于执行搜索策略：COVID-19、前列腺肿瘤。所有符合纳入标准的相关研究都将由两名独立作者进行筛选、选择和提取数据。纳入研究的质量评估将由纽卡斯尔-渥太华量表进行。如果两名作者在选择、提取数据和评估纳入研究的质量方面存在分歧，将通过协商解决，并由第三名作者检查。
由于本研究将是一项不涉及人类参与者的系统综述，因此不需要伦理批准。研究结果将在会议上和同行评议的期刊上发表。
PROSPERO 注册号：CRD42021291656。
