The impact of COVID‐19 on mortality, length of stay, and cost of care among patients with gastrointestinal malignancies: A propensity score‐matched analysis

Abstract Background Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) and the coronavirus 19 (COVID‐19) pandemic have had a lasting impact on the care of cancer patients. The impact on patients with gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies remains incompletely understood. We aimed to assess the impact of COVID‐19 on mortality, length of stay (LOS), and cost of care among patients with GI malignancies, and identify differences in outcomes based on primary tumor site. Methods We analyzed discharge encounters collected from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) between March 2020 and December 2020 using propensity score matching (PSM) and COVID‐19 as the treatment effect. Results Of the 87,684 patient discharges with GI malignancies, 1892 were positive for COVID‐19 (C+) and eligible for matching in the PSM model. Following PSM analysis, C+ with GI tumors demonstrated increased incidence of mortality compared to their COVID‐19‐negative (C‐) counterparts (21.3% vs. 11.9%, p