Güven, Deniz CanŞahin, Taha KorayYıldırım, Hasan ÇağrıÇeşmeci, EnginGülbahçe İncesu, Fatıma GülKılıçkap, Saadettin2021-11-102021-11-102021Guven, D. C., Sahin, T. K., Yildirim, H. C., Cesmeci, E., Incesu, F., Tahillioglu, Y., Ucgul, E., Aksun, M. S., Gurbuz, S. C., Aktepe, O. H., Arik, Z., Dizdar, O., Yalcin, S., Aksoy, S., Kilickap, S., & Kertmen, N. (2021). Newly diagnosed cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic: tumour stage migration and higher early mortality. BMJ supportive & palliative care, bmjspcare-2021-003301. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003301https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003301https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12713/2217Background: We compared the new outpatient clinic referrals during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic with the year before. Methods: We compared baseline characteristics of the 2208 new referrals in 2020 (n=922) and 2019 (n=1286) with ?2 and Mann-Whitney U tests and calculated ORs with binary logistic regression. To evaluate the expected changes in the cancer survival secondary to stage migration, we used the 5-year survival data of Survival, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program 2010-2016. Results: The percentage of patients with inoperable or metastatic disease was significantly increased during the pandemic (49.8% vs 39%, OR: 1.553, 95% CI: 1.309 to 1.843, p<0.001). We observed a significant decrease in the percentage of patients diagnosed via the screening methods (18.8% vs 28.7%, OR: 1.698, 95% CI: 1.240 to 2.325, p=0.001). The 90-day mortality after the cancer diagnosis was significantly higher during the pandemic (10.5% vs 6.6%, OR: 1.661, 95% CI: 1.225 to 2.252, p=0.001). Due to the increased advanced-stage disease rate at first referral, significant decreases in 5-year survival rates were expected for breast cancer (-8.9%), colorectal cancer (-11.1%), cervix cancer (-10.3%) and melanoma (-7%). Conclusion: We think that collaborative efforts are paramount to prevent the pandemic of late cancer diagnoses and ensure patient safety during the pandemic.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessCOVID-19CancerArticle34711656WOS:000723328900001Q210.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003301