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. 2023 Oct;55(4):1222-1230.
doi: 10.4143/crt.2023.364. Epub 2023 Apr 3.

Health-Seeking Behavior Returning to Normalcy Overcoming COVID-19 Threat in Breast Cancer

Eun-Gyeong Lee  1 , Yireh Han  2 , Dong-Eun Lee  3 , Hyeong-Gon Moon  4   5 , Hyoung Won Koh  6 , Eun-Kyu Kim  6 , So-Youn Jung  1   7
Affiliations

Health-Seeking Behavior Returning to Normalcy Overcoming COVID-19 Threat in Breast Cancer

Eun-Gyeong Lee et al. Cancer Res Treat. 2023 Oct.

Abstract

Purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has significantly impacted the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Our study investigated the change in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer with the progress of COVID-19 pandemic.

Materials and methods: The study group comprised 6,514 recently diagnosed breast cancer patients between January 1, 2019, and February 28, 2021. The patients were divided into two groups: pre-COVID-19 period (3,182; January 2019 to December 2019) and COVID-19 pandemic period (3,332; January 2020 to February 2021). Clinicopathological information related to the first treatment after breast cancer diagnosis was retrospectively collected and analyzed in the two groups.

Results: Among the 6,514 breast cancer patients, 3,182 were in the pre-COVID-19 period and 3,332 were in the COVID-19 pandemic period. According to our evaluation, the least breast cancer diagnosis (21.8%) was seen in the first quarter of 2020. The diagnosis increased gradually except for the fourth quarter in 2020. While early-stage breast cancer was diagnosed 1,601 (48.1%) during the COVID-19 pandemic (p=0.001), the number of surgical treatments increased 4.6% (p < 0.001), and the treatment time was slightly shorter 2 days (p=0.001). The breast cancer subtype distribution was not statistically different between the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 period groups.

Conclusion: In the early stages of the pandemic, the number of breast cancer cases temporarily decreased; however, they stabilized soon, and no significant differences could be identified in the diagnosis and treatment when compared to the period before the pandemic.

Keywords: Breast neoplasms; COVID-19; Diagnosis; Therapeutics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

Conflict of interest relevant to this article was not reported.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients after onset of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) at three hospitals.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Trends in breast cancer stage proportion after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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