1628P Impact of COVID-19 pandemia on the diagnosis of breast cancer in one region of north of Portugal: One year experience

Abstract

Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre -including this research content -immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.conducted with separate interview guides designed for each participant group. Questions related to the use of VCs in the future, accessing technology, waiting times and communicating issues, wider worries or fears. Participants rated their experiences from 1-5 (1 being low and 5 being high). Interviews were recorded with verbal consent and transcribed verbatim. Data was thematically analysed using NVivo12.Results: A total of 36 patients and 10 clinicians participated. Themes were acceptance, time, technology, purpose of clinic, communication, equipment, benefits and choice. Participants were accepting of the VC with 80.5% of patients (n¼29/36) and 90% of clinicians (n¼9/10) supporting future use. Both groups agreed that VCs are not suited to everyone and the use of the VC should be individualised for the patient based on several criteria including patient preference, reason for consultation and patient characteristics. The average satisfaction rating of the VC was higher among patients (4.45/5) than clinicians (3.75/5), with many clinicians suggesting that support setting up video clinics may improve the score. Conclusions:The study showed the promising use of VCs in the future. Recommendations were suggested to optimise the patient and clinician experience. These include implementing a patient triage system to advise which patients should have a virtual consultation, providing enhanced training and equipment to staff and ensuring the chosen method of VC provided is individualised to the patient's needs.Legal entity responsible for the study: The authors.

Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on breast cancer screening and diagnosis rates: A rapid review and meta-analysis

“…Third, restricting the pre-COVID-19 period to before 1 st January 2020 also meant the exclusion of three studies with a one-year long assessment period. 61 – 63 Lastly, the validity of rate measures in this review was limited by the assumption of stability of population between the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on life expectancy are built upon different assumptions about the age-specific mortality rates and COVID-19 prevalence rates which differ widely across different countries; therefore, it is complex and not straightforward to predict the trends in demographic stability during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”