Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Breast Cancer Patients in a Tertiary Care Center

Abstract

Jujar Kapadia*, Shashi Shankar Sharma, Sanjay Kumar Mahajan, Rahul Tayal, Swati Simran, Sonia Moses, Sachin Verma, Sahaj Dhakad, Gaurav Garg and Gautam Birla

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the health-care system worldwide, and surgeons faced challenges in clinical practice, especially in managing cancer patients. This study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on delay of breast cancer patient’s management.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to study the impact of global COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent governmental directives on surgery department of M.G.M. Medical College, M.Y. Hospital, Indore (M.P.) on all breast cancer patients referred to our unit from march 2021 to July 2021. Type of treatments and surgery, TNM, tumor diameter, and predictive and prognostic factors were analysed.

Conclusions: The study’s findings show that the active COVID-19 pandemic led to a more stressful situation among physicians, which has affected management of breast cancer patients. COVID-19 is reshaping the delivery of not only breast cancer care but also general oncology practice. Currently, due to the availability of effective vaccination and more understanding of COVID-19, we believe that breast cancer operations should be performed on their scheduled date.