One in seven cancer patients around the world missed out on potentially life-saving operations during COVID-19 lockdowns, a study from the University of Birmingham in the U.K. found.
Planned cancer surgery was affected by lockdowns regardless of the local COVID-19 rates at that time, with patients in lower income countries at highest risk of missing surgery.
These findings were published in The Lancet Oncology.
Led by experts at the University of Birmingham, almost 5,000 surgeons and anaesthetists from around the world worked together as part of the NIHR-funded COVIDSurg Collaborative to analyse data from the 15 most common solid cancer types in 20,000 patients across 466 hospitals in 61 countries.
The researchers compared cancellations and delays before cancer surgery during lockdowns to those during times with light restrictions only. During full lockdowns, one in seven patients (15%) did not receive their planned operation after a median of 5.3 months from diagnosis—all with a COVID-19 related reason for non-operation. However, during light restriction periods, the non-operation rate was very low (0.6%).
Patients awaiting surgery for more than six weeks during full lockdown were significantly less likely to have their planned cancer surgery. Frail patients, those with advanced cancer, and those awaiting surgery in lower-middle income countries were all less likely to have the cancer operation they needed.
Full and moderate lockdowns independently increased the likelihood of non-operation after adjustment for local COVID-19 case notification rates.
“In order to prevent further harm during future lockdowns, we must make the systems around elective surgery more resilient—protecting elective surgery beds and operating theatre space, and properly resourcing ‘surge’ capacity for periods of high demand on the hospital, whether that is COVID, the flu or other public health emergencies,” co-lead author James Glasbey from the University of Birmingham said in a statement.
