Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on unresectable pancreatic cancer: a regional cohort study in Japan

• DOI: 10.5387/fms.24-00011
• Publication Date: 2025-03-05T22:13:38Z
• Authors: Rei Suzuki; Hiroyuki Asama; Naoki Konno; Ko Watanabe; Hiromichi Imaizumi; Yuichi Waragai; Mitsuru Sugimoto; Yuki Sato; Hiroki Irie; Hiroshi Shimizu; Kentaro Sato; Tadayuki Takagi; Hiromasa Ohira
• Keywords: Pandemic; 2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on healthcare, including cancer management. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic of pandemic, throughout its duration, patient care for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). We collected clinical data patients with unresectable PDAC who underwent palliative chemotherapy at five medical facilities in Fukushima, Japan. were divided into two groups: group A (nonpandemic cohort) and B (pandemic cohort). Survival analysis was performed progression-free survival (PFS) overall (OS) via Kaplan‒Meier method log-rank test. In total, 249 selected analysis. Patients Group significantly greater serum CA19-9 levels proportions combination therapy; however, we did not find differences between groups PFS (Group vs. B: 5.6 months 4.4 months, HR = 0.82 (95% CI, 0.6-1.1), p 0.17) or OS (14.8 12.3 0.81 0.7-1.3), 0.81) observe negative prognosis pandemic.