Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39865151›Full record

ArticleBreast cancer research and treatment2025

Did the COVID-19 consortium recommendations impact the treatment of breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Marie L Fefferman, Kelley Chan, Joseph Cotler, Danielle M Thompson, Richard J Bleicher, Scott H Kurtzman, Jill M Dietz, Katharine Yao

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Article in Breast cancer research and treatment, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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2citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Marie L FeffermanDepartment of Surgery, Endeavor Health, Evanston, IL, USA.
Kelley ChanAmerican College of Surgeons Cancer Programs, Chicago, IL, USA.
Joseph CotlerAmerican College of Surgeons Cancer Programs, Chicago, IL, USA.
Danielle M ThompsonDepartment of Surgery, Endeavor Health, Evanston, IL, USA.
Richard J BleicherDepartment of Surgical Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Scott H KurtzmanDepartment of Surgery, Waterbury Hospital, Waterbury, CT, USA.
Jill M DietzDepartment of Surgery, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
Katharine YaoDepartment of Surgery, Endeavor Health, Evanston, IL, USA. kyao@northshore.org.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeWe examined the impact of the COVID-19 consortium recommendations on the surgical management of breast cancer during the first year of the pandemic.

methodsPatients with newly diagnosed ER + DCIS, ER- DCIS, AJCC Stage cT1-2N0-1 ER + , HER2-, HER2 + , and triple negative breast cancer were identified from the National Cancer Database from 2018 to 2021. An interrupted time series design evaluated differences in surgical delay and use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy/immunotherapy (NAC) and endocrine therapy (NET) before and after the pandemic.

resultsA total of 895116 female patients were included in the study with a mean age of 61.7 years. Time to surgery decreased by an average 5.5 days from January 2020 to May 2020 for all breast cancer types, corresponding with a 62.2% decrease in breast cancer diagnoses per month from January 2020 to April 2020. The use of NET increased from 5.6 to 23.6% from January to March 2020 for patients with ER + DCIS and 8.0 to 31.1% for ER + cT1-2N0 cancer (both p < 0.01). The use of NAC for HER2 + tumors and triple negative breast cancers has been increasing since 2018 and a larger than expected increase was seen from 57.2 to 63.6% for HER2 + tumors and 55.6 to 68.7% for triple negative breast cancers (both p < 0.01). Treatment practices returned to pre-pandemic levels in June 2020.

conclusionPrior to the publication of the Consortium recommendations, time to surgery decreased while the use of NET and NAC increased, with the resumption of pre-pandemic practices by June 2020.

Indexed as

Breast NeoplasmsCOVID-19AdultAgedFemaleHumansMastectomyMiddle AgedNeoadjuvant TherapyNeoplasm StagingPandemicsPractice Guidelines as TopicSARS-CoV-2Time-to-TreatmentBreast cancerCOVID-19 pandemicNeoadjuvant therapyTime to surgery

Identifiers

PMID39865151

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.