For many cancers, surgery is central to diagnosis and treatment and is the only curative modality. Treatment delay can result in a missed opportunity for cure and can worsen outcomes.1-3 Postponing cancer surgery may cost more lives than can be saved by diverting surgical resources and services to managing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection.1,2 Delays in surgical care and a backlog of new cancer diagnoses will place unprecedented pressures on health care systems, particularly those with a limited ability to increase throughput.4 Data are lacking on the effect of pandemic deferral policies on cancer surgery case volumes and whether specific subgroups have been disproportionately affected. These data are required to inform surgical policies during future waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring optimal outcomes and equitable care.4 Although sociodemographic factors (such as belonging to a minority racial or ethnic group, having low income, and having a nonrural residence) have been associated with increased COVID-19 infection rates and less access to treatment,5,6 little is known about whether these factors were also associated with access to cancer surgery during the pandemic. Therefore, we sought to quantify the cancer surgical backlog and determine whether there were differences in sociodemographic and hospital characteristics among patients undergoing cancer surgery in the pre– and peri–COVID-19 periods.
This was a population-based retrospective cohort study in Ontario, Canada, that was approved by the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre research ethics board. This study followed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) reporting guideline. Informed consent was waived because this was a population-based retrospective study. The weekly volume of a comprehensive and well-defined list of cancer-directed hospital-based surgical procedures was determined using Canadian Institute for Health Information procedure codes between January 7, 2018, and June 27, 2020. Only institutions that provided complete data during this period were included in the study.
Segmented regression models were constructed to quantify (1) the surgical volume trend pre–COVID-19 (January 7, 2018, to March 14, 2020; preperiod slope), (2) the immediate decrease in surgical volume at the start of the pandemic (March 15, 2020; change in intercept), and (3) the surgical volume trend during the peri–COVID-19 period (periperiod slope, March 15 to June 27, 2020). In comparing patient characteristics from the pre–COVID-19 period with the peri–COVID-19 period, a standardized difference of greater than 0.1 was used to indicate a meaningful difference between groups. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS Enterprise Guide 7.15 (SAS Institute).
We included 543 751 patients (mean [SD] age, 56.9 [16.9] years; 332 156 [61.1%] women) from 112 of 120 hospitals (93.3%) eligible for analysis. There was an immediate 60% decrease in the mean surgical volume on March 15, 2020, compared with the mean surgical volume in the pre–COVID-19 period. This decrease was followed by a 6% increase in mean surgical volume each subsequent week. Surgical volumes did not return to pre–COVID-19 numbers by June 27, 2020 (Figure), resulting in 35 671 fewer completed surgical procedures in the peri–COVID-19 period than the pre–COVID-19 period.
There were few sociodemographic differences between the patients who received surgery in the pre– or peri–COVID-19 period (Table). Measures, such as material deprivation, rurality, immigration, and region, did not differ between patients treated in the pre– or peri–COVID-19 period. However, compared with the pre-COVID-19 period, cancer surgery in the peri–COVID-19 period was more often considered urgent (78 263 [15.4%] vs 9365 [27.6%]; standardized difference, 0.30) and performed more frequently at teaching hospitals (360 807 [29.2%] vs 11 628 [34.2%]; standardized difference, 0.11) and in inpatient settings (233 522 [45.8] vs 20 700 [60.9]; standardized difference, 0.31).
An immediate 60% decrease in cancer-directed surgery was associated with measures aimed at creating capacity for COVID-19 admissions. This decrease led to major disruptions in cancer care with a large deficit of completed cases in the peri–COVID-19 period compared with the pre–COVID-19 period. Importantly, in a universal publicly funded health care environment, sociodemographic factors were not associated with receipt of surgery in the early peri–COVID-19 period. This suggests equally equitable access to surgical care for patients treated in the early peri–COVID-19 period compared with the pre–COVID-19 period. This study is limited by the lack of timely access to the provincial cancer registry data, which decreased cancer specificity (due to data lag). However, these cancer-directed procedures, whether specifically performed for cancer or not, provide insight to cancer surgical services. Further work is needed to ensure patients experiencing material deprivation are not disadvantaged as cancer diagnostic services increase. The Canadian universal health care context is uniquely positioned to answer cancer outcome questions with an equity lens during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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