Changes in breast cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a Dutch population-based study

Contains fulltext : 290891.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) PURPOSE: We aimed to compare (1) treatments and time intervals between treatments of breast cancer patients diagnosed during and before the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) the number of treatments started during and before the pandemic. METHODS: Women were selected from the Netherlands Cancer Registry. For aim one, odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were calculated to compare the treatment of women diagnosed within four periods of 2020: pre-COVID (weeks 1-8), transition (weeks 9-12), lockdown (weeks 13-17), and care restart (weeks 18-26), with data from 2018/2019 as reference. Wilcoxon rank-sums test was used to compare treatment intervals, using a two-sided p-value