Impact of COVID-19 on lung cancer care in New South Wales, Australia: real-world data from the EnRICH Program

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted healthcare systems worldwide, causing substantial changes to routine healthcare delivery. National and international modelling studies have predicted adverse impacts of this disruption. This study aimed to assess the real-world impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on quality of care and outcomes for patients with lung cancer in New South Wales (NSW).

Pre-post observational cohort study using data prospectively collected for the Embedding Research (and Evidence) in Cancer Healthcare (EnRICH) Program.

The study population comprised 2000 patients with lung cancer from six specialist cancer centres in metropolitan and regional NSW. We split this population into two cohorts: the pre-COVID-19 cohort (1143 patients diagnosed from 8 September 2016 to 10 March 2020) and the post-COVID-19 cohort (857 patients diagnosed from 11 March 2020 to 28 October 2021). The main outcome measures were lung cancer clinical quality indicators, 1-year and 2-year overall survival, and patient-reported health-related quality of life and psychological distress.

Patient and disease characteristics (e.g. age, gender, cancer stage) were similar for the pre-and post-COVID-19 cohorts, except for histology (non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) 88% in the pre-COVID-19 cohort and 84% in the post-COVID-19 cohort; p = 0.008) and region of residence (62% and 55%, respectively, lived in metropolitan areas; p = 0.002). Compared to the pre-COVID-19 cohort, fewer patients in the post-COVID-19 cohort received a diagnosis within 28 days of the first investigation of symptoms (clinical diagnosis: 77% compared with 72%; p = 0.017, pathological diagnosis: 60% compared with 53%; p = 0.005). However, the median time from the first investigation of symptoms to treatment initiation did not differ. One- and 2-year overall survival, quality of life and psychological distress did not differ between cohorts.

This analysis found that the COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly adversely affect quality of care and outcomes for patients with lung cancer in NSW. Reassuringly, these results suggest that prioritising urgent health services, such as cancer care and implementing protective mitigation measures were effective in avoiding the predicted adverse outcomes of healthcare service disruption.