Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on head–neck cancer referral and treatment pathway in North East London
Arshad Zubair, Shiraz Jamshaid, DW Scholfield, AA Hariri, J Ahmed, K Ghufoor, Syed Ahsan Ali
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to wide-ranging disruption of head-neck cancer (HNC) service provision in the UK. Early reports suggest delays in referral, diagnosis and initiation of treatment for new cancer cases compared with before the pandemic. METHODS: The HNC service was studied retrospectively for the time-periods between 1 January 2020 to 31 October 2020 (hereafter 'post-COVID') and 1 January 2019 to 31 October 2019 (hereafter 'pre-COVID'). We analysed: (1) the number of cases treated at our centre, (2) stage of disease at presentation and (3) treatment delivery times. RESULTS: =0.58). CONCLUSION: The results of this study call for early referral at the primary care level and rapid radiopathological confirmation at the tertiary level to prevent delays in diagnosis of new HNC cases.