Background: Corona virus disease 2019 has stressed regular healthcare worldwide. Measures to alleviate the burden on healthcare systems were implemented. This posed a challenge to breast cancer care which is the most prevalent cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. Multiple studies showed the impact of pandemic on management of breast cancer. Aim of the Work: To evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management of non-metastatic breast cancer.
Patients and Methods: This is a retrospective study which included total 196 non-metastatic breast cancer female patients attending the breast clinic at the Clinical Oncology Department, Ain Shams University during 2 periods from March 1st, 2020, to end of July 2020 for recruitment of study group (GROUP A) and from March 1st, 2019, to end of July 2019 for the recruitment of comparative group (GROUP B).
Result: There was a statistical difference between the 2 groups regarding number of patients attending (55 in Group A vs 141 in Group B); in referral route (42.9% of patients referred in Group A was due to transforming the treating hospital to become quarantine hospital while none in Group B with majority of patients were referred as there was for radiotherapy); in details of treatment protocols and time delay between decisions taken and start of the treatment including total interrupted time with no treatment with more delay before receiving any treatment (neoadjuvant, adjuvant or surgery) in the study 2020 group < br />Conclusion: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic over different health care systems around the globe was remarked, Cancer care was affected due to need of multidisciplinary teams to formulate the best plan of management and breast cancer care were among those affected.