Half of breast cancer survivors had delays in care due to COVID-19
Researchers surveyed more than 600 breast cancer survivors

Date:
August 18, 2020
Source:
University of Illinois at Chicago
Summary:
The results of an online questionnaire of 609 breast cancer
survivors in the US suggest that nearly half of patients experienced
delays in care during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The results of an online questionnaire of 609 breast cancer survivors
in the U.S. suggest that nearly half of patients experienced delays
in care during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study,
by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago, is published in
the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.


==========================================================================
"The motivation for the study came from widespread reports of cancer
care being delayed or procedures being canceled in the beginning of the pandemic, and we wanted to get a better handle on what was happening,"
said Elizabeth Papautsky, assistant professor of biomedical and health information sciences at the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences.

Papautsky and co-author Tamara Hamlish, a research scientist in the
cancer survivorship program at the University of Illinois Cancer Center, developed a questionnaire that asked about care delays. They distributed
the questionnaire to U.S. breast cancer survivor groups on social media
and via email. They used the National Cancer Institute's definition of
a cancer survivor, which includes anyone who has received a diagnosis
of cancer.

Between April 2 and April 27, the researchers received 609 responses.

The questionnaire sought to identify what kinds of care was delayed: chemotherapy, radiation, cancer surgery, hormonal treatment or routine
follow- up appointments. There also were demographic questions on race
and age, as well as stage of cancer.

Sixty-three percent of respondents were currently receiving cancer care,
and the average age was 47 years old. The respondents were diverse: 78% identified as white, 17% as Black and 3% as Asian.

The researchers found that 44% of the respondents reported a delay
in care. The most commonly reported delay was for routine follow-up
visits. Respondents reported the highest rate of delays in routine
follow-up appointments (79%), breast reconstruction surgery (66%),
diagnostic imaging (60%) and lab testing (50%). Approximately 30%
of respondents reported delays in hospital- or clinic- based cancer
therapies, including radiation (30%), infusion therapies (32%) and
surgical tumor removal (26%).

"We expected the usual racial difference we see in health care, with Black patients being disproportionately affected, but our results showed that patients were universally affected by COVID in terms of delays in breast
cancer care, likely because in those early weeks, hospitals and health
care facilities were postponing visits and procedures across the board as
they took on the growing burden of dealing with COVID-19," Hamlish said.

"We were surprised to see that younger women were more likely to
experience delays, and we think that has to do with cancellations of
hormone therapy for ovarian suppression that is given to women with
certain types of breast cancer, and those women tend to be younger in
general," Papautsky said. In the study, the authors found that age was
the only demographic variable that had an impact on the likelihood of
a delay in care.

The questionnaire also had a section for general comments. Many
respondents said that their treatment may have been modified instead of
totally canceled, the researchers said. One example they noted was that
hormone therapies may have been spaced out more to reduce the number of
clinic visits.

"Overall, we see that there is a serious gap in disaster preparedness
when it comes to providing critical, and often time-sensitive care for
breast cancer patients," Hamlish said.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_Illinois_at_Chicago. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Elizabeth Lerner Papautsky, Tamara Hamlish. Patient-reported
treatment
delays in breast cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Breast
Cancer Research and Treatment, 2020; DOI: 10.1007/s10549-020-05828-7 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200818142134.htm

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