Imaging and physician visits at cancer diagnosis: COVID -19 pandemic impact on cancer care.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Little is known about the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the provision of diagnostic imaging and physician visits at cancer diagnosis.

Methods

We used administrative databases from Ontario, Canada, to identify MRI/CT/ultrasound scans and in-person/virtual physician visits conducted with cancer patients within 91 days around the date of diagnosis in 2016-2020. In separate segmented regression procedures, we assessed the trends in weekly volume of these services per thousand cancer patients in prepandemic (June 26, 2016 to March 14, 2020), the change in mean volume at the start of the pandemic, and the additional change in weekly volume during the pandemic (March 15, 2020, to September 26, 2020).

Results

Totally, 403,561 cancer patients were included. On March 1

SUBMITTER: Fu R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10028129 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature