ABSTRACT
Introduction: There are approximately 2,400 new cases of testicular cancer in the UK annually. NICE guidelines recommend all suspected patients to be referred on the 2 week-wait pathway, with a 31 day target to commence treatment following decision to treat. The COVID-19 pandemic has decimated routine hospital service provision and led to the cancellation of 36,000 cancer operations in the UK during the first wave. Our aim was to assess the impact of the pandemic on our testicular cancer patients. Patients and Methods: Eleven trusts in the West Midlands deanery performed a retrospective analysis of all testicular cancer patients between January 2015 to December 2020. The pre-COVID cohort (January 2015-February 2020) were compared to the COVID cohort (March 2020-December 2020). Parameters assessed included date of referral, first clinic appointment, operation, and post-operative tumour markers. Sperm banking and pathological stage was also compared. Results: A total of 830 patients were included. Pre- COVID n=753, COVID n=77. Conclusions: There was statistically no significant difference in time from initial referral to first clinic appointment, duration from clinic to theatre, timeliness of post-operative tumour markers and pathological stage of tumour. Sperm banking was performed significantly more in the COVID era (25.7 vs 10.3%). This reflects consistency in the management of testicular cancer patients during the COVID period. Of note less patients were assessed on average during the COVID era (92 v 146/year) implying that we may experience an increase in patients with later presentations and advanced disease;further analysis will be required to confirm this.