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. 2022 Jan 4:9:750755.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.750755. eCollection 2021.

Cancer Research in the Time of COVID-19: A Colombian Narrative

Raúl Murillo  1   2 , Ginna Fernández-Deaza  1 , María Zuluaga  1 , Grant Lewison  3 , Diana Usgame-Zubieta  4 , Iván Darío Usgame-Zubieta  5 , María Margarita Manrique  5
Affiliations

Cancer Research in the Time of COVID-19: A Colombian Narrative

Raúl Murillo et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Cancer research is deficient in Colombia and efforts and resources diverted due to the COVID-19 pandemic could worsen the situation. We explore the impact of the pandemic on cancer research funding, output, and conduct. We sought information at national level and used the experience of an academic reference center to contrast the impact at institutional level. We searched databases and official documents of national governmental institutions, trial registries, hospital registries, and the Web of Science. We interviewed principal investigators (PIs) to retrieve information on the conduct of cancer research. A decline in resource availability and new proposals was observed at the national level with a shift to COVID-19 related research. However, at institutional level there was no decline in the number of cancer research proposals. The predominance of observational studies as opposed to the preponderance of clinical trials and basic science in high-income countries may be related to the lower impact at institutional level. Nevertheless, we found difficulties similar to previous reports for conducting research during the pandemic. PIs reported long recovery times and a great impact on research other than clinical trials, such as observational and qualitative studies. No significant impact on research output was observed. Alternatives to ensure research continuity such as telemedicine and remote data collection have scarcely been implemented given limited access and low technology literacy. In this middle-income setting the situation shows a notable dependency of international collaborations to develop research on COVID-19 and cancer and to overcome challenges for cancer research during the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Colombia; cancer publications; neoplasms; research priorities.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The handling editor declared a shared committee with one of the authors RM at time of review.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Allocated resources and research projects at the national level. (A): Allocated budget for research and innovation. Source: Minciencias. Percentages referred to the total budget. COVID-Health corresponds to COVID-19 health related research. COVID-Economy corresponds to research and innovation related to the economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. (B): Approved/Registered research projects by data source. Source: Minciencias (Projects funded) (8) and ClinicalTrials.gov (Registered projects by starting date) (9). Percentages should be read with reference to the corresponding total numbers by source. Gray labels refer to numbers in ClinicalTrials.gov. NA: no data available about the total number of projects. *For 2021 partial data up to June 15th.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Research proposals registered at HUSI. Source: Semicrol-Fundanet. Percentages should be read with reference to the total number of proposals. *For 2021 partial data up to June 15th.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cancer research by anatomical site at HUSI. Source: Semicrol-Fundanet. *For 2021 partial data up to June 15th.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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