Impact of COVID ‐19 pandemic on lung cancer treatment scheduling
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Abstract
The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic is associated with a heavy burden on the mental and physical health of patients, regional healthcare resources, and global economic activity. Many patients with lung cancer are thought to be affected by this situation. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID‐19 pandemic on lung cancer treatment scheduling. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of lung cancer patients who were undergoing anticancer treatment at the National Hospital Organization Kyoto Medical Center (600 beds) in Kyoto, Japan, between 1 March 2020 and 31 May 2020. After the medical records were reviewed, the patients were assigned to one of two groups, depending on whether their lung cancer treatment schedule was delayed. We assessed the characteristics, types of histopathology and treatment, and the reason for the delay. A total 15 (9.1%) patients experienced a delay in lung cancer treatment during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Patients with a treatment delay received significantly more immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) monotherapy than patients without a treatment delay ( P = 0.0057). On the contrary, no patients receiving molecular targeted agents experienced a treatment delay during the COVID‐19 pandemic period ( P = 0.0027). The treatments of most of the patients were delayed at their request. We determined that 9.1% lung cancer patients suffered anxiety and requested a treatment delay during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Oncologists should bear in mind that patients with cancer have more anxiety than expected under unprecedented circumstances such as the COVID‐19 pandemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.09.20126995: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: This retrospective study was approved by the relevant institutional review board (approval number: 20-022). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable The patients were predominantly male (mean age: 70.2 ± 9.2 years). Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v26.0 (IBM SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We …SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.09.20126995: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: This retrospective study was approved by the relevant institutional review board (approval number: 20-022). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable The patients were predominantly male (mean age: 70.2 ± 9.2 years). Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v26.0 (IBM SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This study had several limitations. First, this study was retrospectively conducted in a single center, which caused selection bias. Specifically, the proportion of delayed treatment cases is dependent on the severity of the epidemic in an area. Kyoto has been deemed to be a mild epidemic area. Thus, it is expected that areas where the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic is higher will be associated with more patient requests for treatment delay. Second, because the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and ongoing, the study period may have been underestimated. Lastly, the effects of treatment delay on the prognosis of lung cancer are unknown. Nevertheless, our study provides insight into the COVID-19 pandemic impact on cancer treatment. In conclusion, we revealed that 9.1% of lung cancer patients suffered anxiety and requested treatment delay during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, oncologists should keep in mind that cancer patients tend to have more anxiety than is expected under special circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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