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Impact of COVID 19 on red flag discussions for haematological malignancies within the Belfast trust
1Haematology SpR, Department of Haematology, Belfast City Hospital (UK).
Insights
Despite fewer diagnostic tests during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of new hematological malignancy diagnoses remained stable in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. This study assessed new cancer cases during the pandemic
Area of Science:
- Hematology
- Oncology
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Concerns arose about reduced cancer diagnoses during the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially harming patients.
- A study was conducted to evaluate new hematological malignancy diagnoses within the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT).
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on new hematological malignancy diagnoses.
- To determine if a decline in diagnostic tests correlated with a change in new cancer case numbers.
Main Methods:
- Observed a decline in diagnostic tests for hematological malignancies.
- Analyzed new hematological malignancy diagnoses discussed at Multidisciplinary Team Meetings (MDMs) from March-June 2020, comparing with the same period in 2019.
- Confirmed no change in referral pathways per NICE guidelines.
Main Results:
- No significant difference was found in the number of new malignant hematological diagnoses between March-June 2020 and March-June 2019.
- The volume of new diagnoses remained consistent across the two periods.
Conclusions:
- Despite reduced diagnostic blood tests in primary and secondary care, new hematological malignancy diagnoses did not differ during the initial COVID-19 surge.
- The number of new hematological malignancy cases remained stable locally throughout the first pandemic surge.
Introduction:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been suggestions that there will be a reduction in cancer diagnoses, causing a detrimental effect on patients1. We therefore conducted an analysis to assess if there has been a reduction in new haematological malignancy diagnoses within the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT).
Methods:
We observed a significant decline in diagnostic tests used in the diagnosis of haematological malignancies. We therefore decided to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on the volume of tests performed to see if this impacted the number of new cases of haematological malignancies diagnosed. To ascertain the number of new diagnoses referred to Clinical Haematology we decided to analyse the number of new diagnoses discussed at the local Multidisciplinary Team Meetings (MDM) between March and June 2020 and compare this with the same period in 2019. In line with NICE guidelines2 there has been no change to the referral pathway for patients with new haematological malignancy.
Results:
Results show that there is no significant difference between the number of new malignant haematological diagnoses discussed during March to June 2020 and the same period in 2019. This confirms that the number of new diagnoses remains the same within the two time periods.
Conclusion:
This analysis highlights that despite a reduction in primary and secondary care diagnostic blood tests, there is no difference in the number of new cases of haematological malignancies discussed at Haematology MDM throughout the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic locally.