Results
A total of 278 patients were discussed at MTB meetings in the pre-pandemic period versus 340 patients during the pandemic, an increase of 22%. No difference was found between the percentage of male patients, mean patient age, place of residence (Wielkopolska province or elsewhere) (Table 1.)
Similarly, no differences were observed in the percentage of patients receiving radiological diagnosis at the GPCC (49% vs. 50%). However, the proportion of patients whose histopathologic evaluation of the biopsied tumour was performed at the centre increased from 48.6% in the pre-Covid period to 57.4% (p=0.029) (Table 1).
The mean time from first visit to the MTB meeting differed non-significantly from the pre-pandemic to the pandemic period (27.9 vs 33.5 days, respectively). The mean time from presentation at the MTB to treatment initiation increased significantly from 17.1 to 21.7 days (p=0.006). Similarly, the mean time from first visit to treatment start also increased significantly (44.7 vs. 54.4 days; p=0.004) (Table 1).
The percentage of oral cancer patients decreased significantly from 45.3% to 32.1% (p=0.01; Benjamini-Hochberg correction: p=0.059) while the proportion of nasopharyngeal cancer patients rose from 0.4% to 3.2% (p=0.01; Benjamini-Hochberg correction p=0.059). There were no significant differences between the two periods in the percentage of locally (stage T3-T4), regionally (N+) advanced cases and in terms of disease stage (III-IV) (Table 2.)
No significant differences were detected in the percentage of patients undergoing surgery (71% vs. 75.4%) except for patients diagnosed with early-stage oropharyngeal cancer, the percentage of patients who underwent primary surgery increased significantly from 47.3% to 86.6% (p=0.001) (Table 3).
The percentage of patients who received palliative radiotherapy increased significantly, from 20.5% to 32.9% (p=0.001). In addition, the proportion of patients who received best supportive care also increased significantly, from 1.8% to 6.2% (p=0.007).