The COVID-19 pandemic impact on breast cancer care delivery at an academic center in New York City.

Abstract

88 Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has altered healthcare delivery. To save resources and reduce patient exposure, non-urgent care has been postponed. Previous work has focused on cancer patients with COVID-19, but little has been reported on the impact on patients without COVID-19. We aimed to characterize breast cancer (BC) patients without COVID-19 whose care was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic at an academic center in New York City. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of BC patients treated at a medical oncology practice between 2/1/2020-4/30/2020. Patients were included if they were scheduled to receive intravenous or injectable therapy or were scheduled as a new patient. Patients were excluded if they tested positive for COVID-19 or transferred care during the study period. Demographic and treatment information were obtained by chart review. Delays/changes in systemic therapy, imaging, interventional radiology procedures, radiation, and surgery were tracked. Delays were defined as postponements of scheduled care. Changes were defined as care alterations without postponements. Care impact was defined as any change/delay in any of the above oncologic care a patient was scheduled for. We conducted a univariate analysis to compare demographics and care impact using χ2 analyses. Results: Of 351 eligible patients, the majority had stage 0-III BC (71.9%) and hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative BC (69.5%). Less than half were Caucasian (43.9%). Care was impacted due to the pandemic in 149 (42.5%) of patients. Surgery changes/delays were most frequent (37 of 84 patients, 44.0%), followed by changes/delays in systemic therapy (90 of 351 patients, 25.6%) and imaging (58 of 282 patients, 20.6%). Patients of Asian, Black, and other non-reported races were more likely to experience a care impact vs. Caucasian patients (47.1% vs. 44.4% vs. 55.6% vs. 31.2%, p = 0.001). Hispanic patients were more frequently impacted vs. non-Hispanic patients (47.6% vs. 35.9%, p = 0.06). Medicaid and Medicare patients were also more frequently impacted vs. commercially insured patients (54.7% vs. 41.4% vs. 36.2%, p = 0.02). BC stage and hormone receptor status were not significantly associated with care impacts. Conclusions: We found that nearly half of our BC patients experienced a change/delay in workup or treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also found significant racial and socioeconomic disparities in the likelihood of care impact. Ongoing studies will determine the impact of alterations in care on cancer outcomes.