Webster Laura, Lawton Sarah, Thackray Katherine, Barclay Matthew, Bomb Martine, Lyratzopoulos Georgios, Dodwell David, Kipps Emma
National Disease Registration Service (NDRS), NHS England, UK.
National Disease Registration Service (NDRS), NHS England, UK.
Cancer Epidemiol. 2025 Jun;96:102806. doi: 10.1016/j.canep.2025.102806. Epub 2025 Mar 27.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused substantial disruption to the delivery of cancer treatment. We aimed to describe the impact on the use of systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) in England with a focus on the treatment of breast and lung cancer.
We identified patients newly diagnosed with cancer between January 2019 and December 2020 from the National Cancer Registration Dataset. We describe the changes in the number and stage distribution of patients, and the proportion receiving SACT within 12 months of diagnosis of breast and lung cancer.
An estimated 7704 fewer breast cancer patients and 2286 fewer lung cancer patients were newly diagnosed in 2020 compared to 2019. This was concordant with a reduction in the number of SACT administrations delivered within 12 months post-diagnosis. However, an increased proportion received SACT from April to December 2020 for patients diagnosed with breast cancer, which was not seen for lung cancer patients.
Changes in the delivery of SACT were largely driven by a reduction in the number of patients who were diagnosed with cancer in 2020. An increased proportion of breast cancer patients treated with SACT likely reflects the increased proportion of patients who were diagnosed with stage III and stage IV disease.
新冠疫情对癌症治疗的实施造成了重大干扰。我们旨在描述其对英格兰全身抗癌治疗（SACT）使用情况的影响，重点关注乳腺癌和肺癌的治疗。
我们从国家癌症登记数据集中确定了2019年1月至2020年12月期间新诊断出癌症的患者。我们描述了患者数量和分期分布的变化，以及乳腺癌和肺癌诊断后12个月内接受SACT治疗的患者比例。
与2019年相比，2020年新诊断出的乳腺癌患者估计减少了7704例，肺癌患者减少了2286例。这与诊断后12个月内SACT给药次数的减少相一致。然而，2020年4月至12月期间，被诊断为乳腺癌的患者接受SACT治疗的比例有所增加，而肺癌患者则没有出现这种情况。
SACT实施情况的变化主要是由2020年癌症诊断患者数量的减少所驱动。接受SACT治疗的乳腺癌患者比例增加，可能反映了诊断为III期和IV期疾病的患者比例增加。
