Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan-Dec:28:1073274821997425.
doi: 10.1177/1073274821997425.

The Effects of COVID-19 on Cancer Care Provision: A Systematic Review

Samiha Alom  1   2 , Chun Ming Chiu  3   2 , Ashwarya Jha  4 , Sheung Heng Daniel Lai  5 , Thomas Ho Lai Yau  6 , Amer Harky  7
Affiliations

The Effects of COVID-19 on Cancer Care Provision: A Systematic Review

Samiha Alom et al. Cancer Control. 2021 Jan-Dec.

Abstract

This systematic review aims to gather primary data from cancer institutions that have implemented changes to cancer service provision amid the COVID-19 outbreak to inform future intervention and health care facility response strategies. A comprehensive literature search was done on Global Health Medline and EMBASE using pertinent key words and MeSH terms relating to COVID-19 and Cancer service provision. A total of 72 articles were selected for inclusion in this systematic review. Following the narrative synthesis that was conducted of the literature, 6 core themes that encompassed common cancer service intervention adopted by institutions were identified: (1) Testing and Tracking, (2) Outreach and Communication, (3) Protection, (4) Social Distancing (5) Treatment Management, (6) Service Restructuring. Since cancer patients are a high-risk population amid the COVID-19 pandemic, these areas of targeted intervention can be used to inform necessary actions in institutions facing similar risks, based on previous learning from numerous cancer centers globally.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; cancer; care organization; service provision.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Prisma Flow Diagram.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Summary of Themes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization. COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update. WHO; 2020.
    1. Emanuel EJ, Persad G, Upshur R. et al. Fair allocation of scarce medical resources in the time of Covid-19. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(21):2049–2055. doi:10.1056/NEJMsb2005114 - PubMed
    1. van de Haar J, Hoes LR, Coles CE. et al. Caring for patients with cancer in the COVID-19 era. Nat Med. 2020;26(5):665–671. doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0874-8 - PubMed
    1. Kutikov A, Weinberg DS, Edelman MJ, Horwitz EM, Uzzo RG, Fisher RI. A war on two fronts: cancer care in the time of COVID-19. Ann Intern Med. 2020;172(11):756–758. doi:10.7326/M20-1133 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Burki TK. Cancer guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lancet Oncol. 2020;21(5):629–630. doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30217-5 - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources