Impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer

Abstract

After the first appearance of COVID-19cases, the virus spread worldwide within afew months. This led to adecrease in medical consultations. The present study investigates whether this effect had an impact on the diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer during the period from 2018 to 2022. Data from the clinical cancer registration center (KKR) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from the 2020-2022 period were compared to those from the two previous years (2018, 2019). Demographic data, case numbers, diagnosis data, International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes, and TNM classifications were recorded. COVID-19case numbers were obtained from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney Utest and Pearson's correlation. Atotal of 2332 patient cases could be included in this study. During the lockdown there was neither asignificant reduction in tumor diagnoses registered at the KKR nor acorrelation between COVID-19case numbers and tumor diagnoses. Significant differences were found in terms of Tcategory in the year 2022 compared to the pre-COVID years 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, there was ashift in the relative frequencies of some ICD-10codes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, no significant differences in tumor diagnoses were observed upon comparing the years 2018 to 2022. Contrary to the expectation of adecrease in case numbers during the pandemic due to the lockdown with an increase in tumor stages, areduction of the Tcategory could be found in 2022, and ashift in the relative frequencies of some ICD-10codes in the pandemic period was observed.