Impact of the Sars-COVID-19 Pandemic on the “Early Diagnosis” of Laryngeal Tumors: Data From Monocentric Tertiary Care Hospital of South Italy

Objective: The aim of this retrospective case-control study is to investigate how the Sars-COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the delay in the early diagnosis of laryngeal cancer in patients who visited the University Hospital "G. Martino" in the last 3 years of the pandemic. It is also proposed to compare the diagnosis, surgical staging, and therapeutic approach offered to patients affected by laryngeal cancer in the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared to cases treated during the 3 years preceding the pandemic METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL: A single-center retrospective study was carried out to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx at our Otorhinolaryngology Division of the "Gaetano Martino" University hospital. The research period, 6 years, was divided into two sub-periods of equal months for which we divided the patients into two groups "Before COVID-19" and "During COVID-19", defined, respectively, from February 2017 to March 2020 and from April 2020 to May 2023. Patients aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma, seen and surgically treated at the Otorhinolaryngology division of the "Gaetano Martino" University Hospital and patients referred from other hospitals were included in the study population. Patients affected by malignancies in other sites with secondary laryngeal involvement, patients not amenable to surgical therapy, treated only with radio-chemotherapy therapy, and patients not amenable to surgical therapy were excluded from the study. Results: A total of 141 patients were recruited, divided into 76 patients in the "Before COVID-19" arm and 65 patients in the "During COVID-19" arm, with a male prevalence of 119 patients (84.4%). The mean age of our study population stands at a median of 69 years (percentile 25th 60.00 and percentile 75th 77.00). Smoking and alcohol are two predominant variables in our study population with a prevalence of 89.4% and 79.4%, respectively. A higher number of TNM stage IV cases was detected, 29.2% in the group "During COVID-19" compared to 5.3 detected in the group "Before COVID-19" (P = 0.005). In the "During COVID-19" group, we find an overall percentage of 61.5% for stages II-III-IV versus 36.9% present in the "Before COVID-19" group of patients. An adjuvant radiotherapy treatment was actuated in 30.26% of patients in the "Before COVID-19" versus 41.54% in "During COVID-19". Conclusions: The most important result of our research was the statistically significant difference in tumor staging at the time of diagnosis between the "Before COVID-19" and "During COVID-19" groups, with a higher mean value in the latter. The current data confirm the previously exposed hypothesis according to which the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a delay in early diagnosis, negatively influencing the staging at the time of the first ENT visit and the subsequent therapeutic approach to be offered to the patient.