[Impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer].

Background: After the first appearance of COVID-19 cases, the virus spread worldwide within a few months. This led to a decrease in medical consultations. The present study investigates whether this effect had an impact on the diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer during the period from 2018 to 2022.

Materials and methods: Data from the clinical cancer registration center (KKR) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from the 2020-2022 period were compared to those from the two previous years (2018, 2019). Demographic data, case numbers, diagnosis data, International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes, and TNM classifications were recorded. COVID-19 case numbers were obtained from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and Pearson's correlation.

Results: A total of 2332 patient cases could be included in this study. During the lockdown there was neither a significant reduction in tumor diagnoses registered at the KKR nor a correlation between COVID-19 case numbers and tumor diagnoses. Significant differences were found in terms of T category in the year 2022 compared to the pre-COVID years 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, there was a shift in the relative frequencies of some ICD-10 codes.

Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, no significant differences in tumor diagnoses were observed upon comparing the years 2018 to 2022. Contrary to the expectation of a decrease in case numbers during the pandemic due to the lockdown with an increase in tumor stages, a reduction of the T category could be found in 2022, and a shift in the relative frequencies of some ICD-10 codes in the pandemic period was observed.