Demographic data and tumour location
Most of the studies that have compared patients treated in the
pre-pandemic and pandemic periods have not found any significant
demographic differences in sex or age, similar to our results7,9,10. However, we did find a significantly higher
proportion of patients diagnosed with oral cancer in the pre-Covid
period (45.3% vs. 32.1%; Table 2), but the reason for this difference
is difficult to determine. Kiong et al. found no significant differences
in the main head and neck cancer locations at their centre between the
two periods, nor did they find any other studies reporting such
differences 8. In contrast, Thomson and colleagues
found a substantial increase in the percentage of patients diagnosed
with oral cancer (from 23% to 44.4%), but they did not explain the
potential reasons for this difference 7.
Interestingly, we observed a significant increase in the number of
nasopharyngeal cancer patients (from 1 to 11), perhaps because most of
the symptoms and side effects of Covid-19 affect the nasal cavity and
paranasal sinuses, which could have led to early detection of
nasopharyngeal cancer during the diagnostic process for Covid-19.
Alternatively, virus-mediated stimulation of the immunological system
may have initiated the disease process leading to nasopharyngeal cancer.
However, this hypothesis is only speculative given the small sample size
and considering that this finding has not been reported elsewhere.
Nonetheless, this question could merit further research.