ArticleInternational journal of cancer2023
Time intervals in the care pathway to cancer diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic: A large retrospective study from a high-volume center.
Article in International journal of cancer, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assessing the impact of timely diagnosis on psychological outcomes and quality of life for cancer patients: A scoping review.PloS one · 2026Article
- Decomposing life expectancy changes in Spain in the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic periods.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Did the COVID-19 pandemic delay treatment for localized breast cancer patients? A multicenter study.PloS one · 2024Article
- Time intervals in the care pathway to cancer diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic: A large retrospective study from a high-volume center.International journal of cancer · 2023Article
- Axillary Treatment Management in Breast Cancer during COVID-19 Pandemic (Association between ACOSOG Z0011 Criteria and OSNA Test).Journal of personalized medicine · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite extensive research on cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence on the impact on prediagnostic time intervals is lacking. To better understand how COVID-19 changed the pathway to diagnosis of cancer, we examined the length of intervals from symptom onset to diagnosis for 13 common cancer types with known clinical stage over 1-year nonpandemic period (March 2019 to March 2020; N = 844) and three biannual COVID periods (March 2020 to September 2021; N = 1172). We analyzed the patient interval (from first symptoms to presentation to a physician), the primary care/emergency department interval (from presentation with relevant symptoms to a primary care or emergency department physician to referral to a hospital-based diagnosis center) and the hospital interval (from referral to diagnosis). Compared to nonpandemic data, there were significant changes across COVID periods. The pandemic mostly impacted patient intervals for cancers diagnosed over the first 6 months after onset in March 2020. Overall median patient intervals were longest in the early COVID period (39 [IQR 22-64] days) and shortest in the nonpandemic period (20 [IQR 13-30] days; Kruskal-Wallis test [χ
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