How much have covid-19 pandemic waves impacted the number of lung cancer surgeries
Ce dossier présente un ensemble d'articles concernant la prise en charge des cancers durant la crise sanitaire liée à la COVID-19
The emergence of the covid-19 pandemic had a disruptive effect on health services worldwide. As more resources were needed to face the epidemiologic threat, even non-elective services suffered a reduction in funding and capacity. Lung cancer care has been affected by this health crisis. Studies have shown a reduction in the diagnosis of this disease after the pandemic's onset and a significant decrease in lung cancer screening [1, 2]. The low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) performance rate among Medicare beneficiaries in the United States of America was 24% (95% CI, 23%-24%) lower than expected between March 2020 and February 2021. Even considering the period between March 2021 and February 2022 – i.e., a most distant phase of the initial disruption of health services due to the pandemic –, the LDCT performance rates remained lower than expected [[3]]. A population-based study in Ontario, Canada, indicated that the weekly incidence of lung cancer reduced immediately after the onset of the pandemic (in March 2020) and this rate continued to decline until at least September 2020 – the final period of the study. Between March and September 2020, the study estimated that approximately 870 lung cancer cases were undiagnosed in this province [[4]].
In Brazil, Federal Law N. 12,732/2012 stipulates that cancer patients have the right to begin treatment within up to two months of diagnosis [[5]]. We used data from the Ministry of Health (System of Hospital Information: https://datasus.saude.gov.br/transferencia-de-arquivos/) from 2018 to 2022 to assess whether the pandemic impacted the number of lung cancer surgeries carried out by the Brazilian Unified Health System – the public and universal health system of Brazil. We presented the comparison between the periods under analysis (pre-pandemic and the different phases of the pandemic period) as a percentage of variation, obtained by the equation: [(number of surgeries in the period/number of surgeries in the immediately preceding period)
Lung Cancer , résumé, 2022