The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Diagnosis and Treatment Characteristics of Operated Lung Cancer Patients

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OBJECTIVE: To analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnostic method, disease stage, treatment modalities, and survival of operated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive study. Place and Duration of the Study: Department of Oncology, Gaziantep University Oncology Hospital, Sahinbey, Turkey, from March 2018 to March 2022. METHODOLOGY: Patients who were operated for NSCLC were screened retrospectively. The diagnostic method, demographic and clinical characteristics of patients, COVID-19 infection and survival time were analysed and compared after dividing the patient into prepandemic and pandemic groups according to their chronology of enrollment. RESULTS: A total of 303 patients were included in the study (prepandemic=163, pandemic=140). The time from the symptom onset to the histological diagnosis was shorter in the pandemic group (p=0.005). T4 tumours were more common in the prepandemic group (p=0.01). Most patients with adenocarcinoma underwent lobectomy, and most patients with pneumonectomy had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) histology (p=0.001). The indications for chemotherapy and radiotherapy significantly differed between the groups (p=0.005 and p=0.001, respectively). The rate of patients with incidental diagnosis was higher in the pandemic group (p=0.001), often at Stage-1; patients diagnosed with symptoms were often at Stage-3 (p=0.001). Among the incidentally diagnosed group of patients, 34 (72%) had adenocarcinoma; 127 (50%) patients in the group diagnosed with symptoms had SCC subtype (p=0.001). CONCLUSION: During the pandemic, proportion of patients diagnosed incidentally increased. These patients were mostly diagnosed with adenocarcinoma subtype and diagnosed at an earlier stage. KEY WORDS: Lung cancer, Incidentally, COVID-19 pandemic.