Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on bone and soft tissue tumor treatment: A single-institution study.

OBJECTIVE: The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a great deal of damage to daily medical care. We investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on bone and soft tissue tumor treatment at our hospital. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective comparative study of two groups of patients at Osaka City University Hospital during the period of increasing COVID-19 infections (February-December 2020, group C) and the same period the previous year (February- December 2019, group NC). Clinical data, including patient's age, gender, type of tumor, neoplasms, number of surgical cases for inpatients and outpatients, operation time, use of implants, length of hospital stay, inpatient hospital costs, number of inpatients receiving anticancer drugs, and postoperative complications in these two groups were retrospectively evaluated. RESULTS: The number of cases of malignant bone and soft tissue tumors that were resected during hospitalization was predominantly higher in group C than in group NC (P = 0.01). There were no significant differences in operation time, use of implants, and postoperative complications between group C and group NC, but there were significant differences in the length of hospital stay and hospital costs (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic has been recognized throughout the world to have adverse effects in a variety of areas. It had a negative impact on hospital costs and the length of hospital stay in the field of bone and soft tissue tumor treatment.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on bone and soft tissue tumor treatment: a single institution study (preprint)

Background: The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused severe damage to routine medical care. This study aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on bone and soft tissue tumor treatment at a single center. Methods: A retrospective comparative study was conducted between two groups of patients who received treatment at Osaka City University Hospital during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic (February-December 2020, Group C) and during the same period the previous year (February to December 2019, Group NC). Clinical data, including patient's age, sex, tumor site, type of neoplasms, number of surgical cases for inpatients and outpatients, operation time, use of implant, length of hospital stay, inpatient hospitalization costs, number of inpatients receiving anticancer drugs, and postoperative complications in these two groups were retrospectively evaluated. Results: The number of cases of malignant bone and soft tissue tumors that were resected during hospitalization was predominantly higher in Group C than in Group NC ( P =0.01). There were no significant differences in operation time, use of implant, and postoperative complications between Groups C and NC; however, there were significant differences in the length of hospital stay and hospitalization cost ( P <0.001). Conclusions: Globally, COVID-19 has affected several areas adversely. The present study showed that the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the hospitalization cost and length of hospital stay during the treatment of bone and soft tissue tumor.