The COVID‐19 pandemic has impeded cytopathology practices and hindered cancer screening and management

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic has had a global impact on the environment and economy and has affected hospital administration and patient behaviour. Since human‐to‐human coronavirus transmission occurs via droplets and physical contact, health care professionals are particularly vulnerable to contracting COVID‐19. Many cytopathology laboratories updated their workflow, established new standard biosafety protocols, and built digital pathology or telescope platforms to mitigate these risks and deal with the shortage of health care personnel. The COVID‐19 pandemic also disrupted medical education—all indoor training events, including conferences, multidisciplinary tumour boards, seminars, and microscope inspections were postponed. As a result, many laboratories now use new web‐based applications and platforms to maintain educational programs and multidisciplinary tumour boards. To comply with government directives, health care facilities postponed non‐emergency surgeries, reduced the number of routine medical examinations, restricted visitor numbers, and scaled back cancer screening activities, resulting in a sharp decline in cytopathology diagnoses, cancer screening specimens, and molecular testing for cancer. Subsequent misses or delays in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer were not uncommon. This review aims to provide comprehensive summaries of the consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic for cytopathology, particularly in terms of cancer diagnosis, workload, human resources, and molecular testing.