COVID-19 infection in cancer patients receiving antitumor treatment at medical oncology hospital units in Italy. A CIPOMO observational study (CIPOMO ONCO COVID-19)

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Background: Due to COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals had to re-organize their activities and limit care to non-COVID patients Even oncological care could have registered a partial reduction, both for preventing the risks of infection and to free up resources to be used for the management of COVID-19 To understand the amount of unmet demand in cancer care during the COVID-19 emergency is extremely urgent to foresee appropriate actions of recovering in the coming months Material and methods: Hospital discharges records (HDRs) for cancer care to residents in Piedmont Region were analysed during the first quarter of year 2020 and compared with the same data of year 2019 Medical and surgical hospitalizations and day-surgery were included in the analysis Day-hospitals were excluded as presently highly uncompleted Differences between the two year were described as percentage difference by month, cancer type, age class and Local Health Unit (LHUs) of residence Results: During the first quarter of 2020, in the Piedmont Region, the HDRs for cancer care to residents in Piedmont Region were 9332 for inpatient care and 3689 for day-surgery Overall (n=13 021) HDRs were lower (-11%) compared with the previous year (n= 14 558) Considering only March, such reduction was 29% The highest reduction is reported for the day surgery activity (-49 7% in March), with the largest impact for benign tumors and non-melanoma skin-cancers In-patient surgical care showed a 17% reduction during March compared with the previous year (corresponding to a reduction of about 400 discharges), with the largest impact for benign tumors (-53%) and in situ cases (-32%) Among the cancer sites with a high-absolute and relative-reduction are: bladder (-27,4%), breast (-27 5%) and prostate (-13 2%) For all the other cancer sites no difference in HDRs was evidenced compared with 2019 In-patient medical care during March showed a 24% reduction, involving most of the cancer sites Cancer care reduction resulted homogeneous across all the LHUs in the Region and between age classes Conclusions: In the Piedmont Region during the first quarter of year 2020 in hospital cancer care was slightly reduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic and limited to few cancer sites, hopefully involving selected cases whose prognosis is not expected to deteriorate due to a delayed surgery Further analyses are ongoing to include the months of April and May

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