Impact of COVID-19 on 1-year survival outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma: a multicenter cohort study
File(s)cancers-15-03378-v2.pdf (1.56 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe disruption of healthcare services worldwide and interrupted patients' access to essential services. During the first lockdown, many healthcare services were shut to all but emergencies. In this study, we aimed to determine the immediate and long-term indirect impact of COVID-19 health services utilisation on hepatocellular cancer (HCC) outcomes. METHODS: A prospective cohort study was conducted from 1 March 2020 until 30 June 2020, correlating to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients were enrolled from tertiary hospitals in the UK and Germany with dedicated HCC management services. All patients with current or past HCC who were discussed at a multidisciplinary meeting (MDM) were identified. Any delay to treatment (DTT) and the effect on survival at one year were reported. RESULTS: The median time to receipt of therapy following MDM discussion was 49 days. Patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stages-A/B disease were more likely to experience DTT. Significant delays across all treatments for HCC were observed, but delay was most marked for those undergoing curative therapies. Even though severe delays were observed in curative HCC treatments, this did not translate into reduced survival in patients. CONCLUSION: Interruption of routine healthcare services because of the COVID-19 pandemic caused severe delays in HCC treatment. However, DTT did not translate to reduced survival. Longer follow is important given the delay in therapy in those receiving curative therapy.
Date Issued
2023-06-27
Date Acceptance
2023-06-26
Citation
Cancers (Basel), 2023, 15 (13), pp.1-10
ISSN
2072-6694
Publisher
MDPI AG
Start Page
1
End Page
10
Journal / Book Title
Cancers (Basel)
Volume
15
Issue
13
Copyright Statement
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37444488
PII: cancers15133378
Subjects
COVID-19
hepatocellular carcinoma
pandemic
survival
time-to-treatment
treatment
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
Switzerland
Article Number
3378
Date Publish Online
2023-06-27