The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on colorectal cancer service provision

• Published in: British Journal of Surgery Vol. 107; no. 11; pp. e521 - e522
• Main Authors: Courtney, Alona, Howell, Ann‐Marie, Savva, Nicos, Warren, Oliver, Kontovounisios, Christos, Tekkis, Paris, Milind, Goel, Daulatzai, Najib, Mills, Sarah, Rasheed, Shahnawaz, Tekkis, Nicholas, Gardiner, Matthew, Dai, Tinglong, Safar, Bashar, Efron, Jonathan E, Kouttoukis, George, Slabbert, Hayley, Darzi, Ara, Abulafi, Muti, Alberts, Justin, Amin, Shwan, Branagan, Graham, Bullock, Marc, Chowdhury, Abeed, Cunningham, Chris, Doulias, Triantafyllos, El‐Dhuwaib, Yesar, Evans, Charles, Giordano, Pasquale, Gupta, Ashish, Holtham, Stephen, Jayasinghe, Jayan, Karim, Ahmed, Khan, Jim, Kumar, Lalit, Laskar, Naomi, Madani, Rana, Mansour, Ehab, McNamara, Deborah, Minicozzi, Annamaria, Mirnezami, Alex, Mirnezami, Reza, Mohsen, Yasser, Paine, Heidi, Pearson, Thomas, Roxburgh, Campbell S, Sagar, Peter, Saunders, Michael, Shaikh, Irshad, Shinkwin, Michael, Shrestha, Ashish, Speake, William, Steele, Colin, Tilney, Henry, Torkington, Jared, Vonroon, Alex, Winter, Des, Worku, Dawit
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.10.2020; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Colorectal cancer; Colorectal Neoplasms - epidemiology; Colorectal Neoplasms - therapy; Combined Modality Therapy - methods; Comorbidity; COVID-19 - epidemiology; Humans; Pandemics; Research Letter; SARS-CoV-2; United Kingdom - epidemiology; United Kingdom
• ISSN: 0007-1323; 1365-2168
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.11990

Face‐to‐face consultations were converted to telephone triage in 97·1% of hospitals. 41·7% of hospitals suspended all colonoscopy and 97·2% suspended all surveillance lower GI endoscopy, either because of the risk of COVID‐19 transmission associated with endoscopic procedures (77·8%) or to reduce the risk of exposing vulnerable patients to a hostile hospital environment (58·3%). There was a significant decrease in the provision of laparoscopic surgery with 41·7% of centres electing to perform all colorectal cancer cases as open surgery. Colorectal cancer follow‐up with CEA and CT chest, abdomen and pelvis continued in 36·1% of hospitals, with the majority of sites suspending follow‐up either to reduce the risk of exposing vulnerable patients to hospital environment (41·7%) or to reduce the strain on resources (41·7%).