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Cancer patients first treated with chemotherapy: Are they more likely to receive surgery in the pandemic?

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Due to the ramping down of cancer surgery in early pandemic, many newly diagnosed patients received other treatments first. We aimed to quantify the pandemic-related shift in rate of surgery following chemotherapy. This is a retrospective population-based cohort study involving adults diagnosed with cancer between 3 January 2016 and 7 November 2020 in Ontario, Canada who received chemotherapy as first treatment within 6-months of diagnosis. Competing-risks regression models with interaction effects were used to quantify the association between COVID-19 period (receiving a cancer diagnosis before or on/after 15 March 2020) and receipt of surgical reSection 9-months after first chemotherapy. Among 51,653 patients, 8.5% (n = 19,558) of them ultimately underwent surgery 9-months after chemotherapy initiation. Receipt of surgery was higher during the pandemic than before (sHR 1.07, 95% CI 1.02–1.13). Material deprivation was independently associated with lower receipt of surgery (least vs. most deprived quintile: sHR 1.11, 95% CI 1.04–1.17), but did not change with the pandemic. The surgical rate increase was most pronounced for breast cancer (sHR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06–1.20). These pandemic-related shifts in cancer treatment requires further evaluations to understand the long-term consequences. Persistent material deprivation-related inequity in cancer surgical access needs to be addressed.

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Fu R, Sutradhar R, Dare A, Li Q, Hanna TP, Chan KKW, Irish JC, Coburn N, Hallet J, Singh S, Parmar A, Earle CC, Lapointe-Shaw L, Krzyzanowska MK, Finelli A, Louie AV, Witterick JJ, Mahar A, Urbach DR, McIsaac DI, Enepekides D, Look Hong NJ, Eskander A. Curr Oncol. 2022; 29(10):7732-44. Epub 2022 Oct 14.

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