Decreased overall survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had a profound influence on screening, diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients worldwide. Due to overloaded health care facilities, screening and surveillance visits for early cancer detection were postponed or completely omitted. This included surveillance of patients with liver cirrhosis who are at risk for development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and resulted in a decrease in HCC diagnoses. We therefore aimed to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HCC diagnoses and survival of HCC patients in our tertiary care center in Germany.

Methods

We conducted a monocentric retrospective study in which we analyzed data of 175 patients diagnosed with HCC before (March 2018 through February 2020) or during

SUBMITTER: Bauer U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11811565 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature