Palliative Radiotherapy During the Last Month of Life: Have COVID-19 Recommendations Led to Reduced Utilization?

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND/AIM: The study aimed to evaluate practice changes in the time period of the early wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective single institution study. We defined palliative radiotherapy (PRT) initiated before Saturday, March 14th as pre-COVID and PRT initiated later as during-COVID (through June 30th). RESULTS: National COVID-19 recommendations led to a significant decrease in PRT with 10 or more fractions, while re-irradiation and radiotherapy during the final 30 days of life were equally common before and after these recommendations had been issued in March 2020. CONCLUSION: Rapid adoption of modified PRT regimens was feasible. However, the challenge of overtreatment in the final phase of the disease, due to inaccurate survival prediction, persisted.