COVID-19 Pandemisinin Meme Kanseri Tarama ve Tanı Sürecine Etkisi

Abstract

Aim: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays in breast cancer screening and diagnostic procedures. The aim of this research was to compare the status of breast cancer screenings and newly diagnosed breast cancer cases during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period.
 Material and method: This retrospective study included patients with screening mammography, imaging-guided biopsies, and newly diagnosed breast cancer from March 2020– February 2021 (during-COVID-19) were compared with March 2019–February 2020 (pre-COVID-19). We compared numbers and distribution over time of mammography and biopsies between the time periods. In the breast cancer group; the stage at diagnosis and histopathological features of the tumor were also compared.
 Results: Compared to pre-pandemic mammography scans, a 44% decrease was observed in total during pandemic, the most significant being in April (-98%) and May (-93%). While there was a significant decrease in the number of biopsies in April (-100%) and May (-69%), it was seen that there was no decrease in the pandemic period when the whole year was looked at with a rebound increase that started with 29% in June. In the breast cancer group, there was a significant increase in the number of patients who were metastatic at the time of diagnosis compared to the pre-pandemic period (p=0.001). No significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of tumor grade, hormone receptor status, or HER2 positivity (p>0.05).
 Conclusions: In this study, it was observed that both screening and diagnosis processes in breast cancer were significantly affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was observed that the delay in admission to the hospital in the first months of the pandemic resulted in an increase in patients who were metastatic at the time of diagnosis.