Impact of COVID-19 Epidemic on Morbidity and Mortality of Cancer Patients in the Ryazan Region

INTRODUCTION: In 2020, humanity faced a pandemic of a new infection a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that had a significant impact on the economic, social, including medical, aspects of our life. Against the background of these changes, oncological diseases, like many other comorbid pathologies, seemed to fade into insignificance. But, as we understand, they have not lost their relevance, but only ‘retreated to the shadow’ for a while. Study of the basic statistical indicators used for evaluating the prevalence of cancer pathology and the results of the work of oncological service, helps analyze and understand the processes occurring in conditions of reorientation of medical measures for combating the pandemic.

AIM: To study changes in the main indicators of the oncology service of the Ryazan region during the COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-2019) epidemic.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The main statistical indicators of morbidity, detestability and mortality from malignant neoplasms (MNs) in the Ryazan region were analyzed on the basis of statistical forms of federal statistical observation No. 7 (Form No. 7) ‘Record of MNs’, reports and data of cancer registry for 2012–2022. The most relevant statistical indicators were analyzed, data on most common and relevant tumor localizations were separately considered.

RESULTS: At the height of COVID-19 pandemics in 2020–2021, a sharp reduction of the total number of identified MN cases was observed a seeming decline of ‘mortality’. At the same time, there was an increase in the proportion of patients with advanced IV stage pathology of lungs, stomach, and colorectal cancer, which, in turn, led in some cases to increase in one-year mortality, and to general increase in mortality among cancer patients. To note, despite a complicated situation associated with non-observance of the terms of the periodic medical examinations, reprofiling of a number of medical organizations and increased load on the primary medical care organizations, the oncology service of the Ryazan region showed a not that catastrophic impairment of the main statistical indicators, and of some of them a proportion of detection of early stages, results of treatment of tumors of visual localization even a positive dynamics. In 2022, officially registered cancer incidence rates in our region returned to previous values comparable to 2019.

CONCLUSION: The experience of recent years should help in developing measures to prevent both the spread of similar epidemiological diseases and measures to prevent a decline of the quality of specialized medical care, in particular, in the field of oncology.