Mostafavi Zadeh Seyed Mostafa, Tajik Fatemeh, Gheytanchi Elmira, Kiani Jafar, Ghods Roya, Madjd Zahra
Oncopathology Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Molecular Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
BMJ Support Palliat Care. 2023 Sep 25. doi: 10.1136/spcare-2023-004310.
The healthcare level has been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared with before the outbreak. This study aimed to review the impact of COVID-19 on the screening and diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa).
The current study was designed according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020. The keywords used to perform the search strategy were COVID-19 and prostate neoplasms. The four primary electronic databases comprising PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus and Embase were searched until 1 September 2022. After screening and selecting studies through the EndNote software, data were extracted from each included study by two independent authors. All studies were evaluated according to Newcastle-Ottawa Scale quality assessment tool.
As a result, 40 studies were included, categorised into two subjects. The majority of studies indicated a significant decrease in screening prostate-specific antibody tests during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the pre-pandemic period, leading to delays in cancer diagnosis. The decrease in the number of diagnosed cases with low/intermediate stages to some extent was more than those with advanced stages. The PCa screening and diagnosis reduction ranged from nearly 0% to 78% and from 4.1% to 71.7%, respectively.
Our findings showed that during the COVID-19 lockdown, delays in PCa screening tests and diagnoses led to the negative health effects on patients with PCa. Thus, it is highly recommended performing regular cancer screening to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.
CRD42021291656.
与疫情爆发前相比，新冠疫情对医疗保健水平产生了重大影响。本研究旨在综述新冠疫情对前列腺癌（PCa）筛查和诊断的影响。
本研究依据《系统评价与Meta分析优先报告条目（PRISMA）2020》进行设计。用于执行检索策略的关键词为新冠病毒和前列腺肿瘤。检索了包括PubMed/MEDLINE、科学网、Scopus和Embase在内的四个主要电子数据库，直至2022年9月1日。通过EndNote软件筛选和选择研究后，由两名独立作者从每项纳入研究中提取数据。所有研究均根据纽卡斯尔-渥太华量表质量评估工具进行评估。
结果纳入了40项研究，分为两个主题。大多数研究表明，与疫情前相比，新冠疫情期间前列腺特异性抗体检测筛查显著减少，导致癌症诊断延迟。低/中期诊断病例数量的减少在一定程度上超过了晚期病例。前列腺癌筛查和诊断的减少幅度分别从近0%到78%和从4.1%到71.7%不等。
我们的研究结果表明，在新冠疫情封锁期间，前列腺癌筛查测试和诊断的延迟对前列腺癌患者产生了负面健康影响。因此，强烈建议进行定期癌症筛查，以减少新冠疫情封锁的影响。
PROSPERO注册号：CRD42021291656。
