Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Treatment of Cancer Patients Registered at a Tertiary Care Centre in Eastern India

Abstract

Background: Cancer care has suffered during the covid-19 pandemic due to diversion of manpower to treat covid patients and introduction of lockdown measures. Delay in treatment is detrimental to cancer patients. During the national lockdown, many patients were not able to visit our treatment facility. We conducted this study to evaluate the detriment caused by the pandemic on cancer care in terms of disease progression and the socio economic factors associated with delay in presentation.Materials and Methods: Patients visiting our OPD who were being treated at our department and could not visit the facility during the lockdown were selected. Present status of the disease was assessed using clinical examination and radiological tests. Psycho social distress was assessed using PO BADO SF questionnaire. Disease progression, cause of delay was assessed against various factors like per capita family income, cost of transportation etc. Appropriate statistics was used to analyse and represent the data. Results: 50% patients had disease progression. “High cost of transportation” was the most common response given by patients for not visiting the treatment facility during the lockdown. Most patients being treated with radiotherapy (69%) had responded either “high cost of transportation” or “lack of proper accommodation” as cause of delay (p 0.065). Patients with treatment gap of 80 days or more had higher per capita family income, higher cost of transportation during the lockdown and larger distance between residence and treatment facility. 77.5% patients had psycho social distress according to assessment by PO BADO SF questionnaire.Conclusion: COVID 19 pandemic control measures have impacted cancer care in resulting in disease progression, treatment delays and psycho-social distress. A number of factors may have contributed to the treatment delays like high cost of transportation during the lockdown, longer distance between residence and hospital.