Preparing for the renaissance: treating breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic and planning for a safe re-emergence to routine surgical care within a universal health care system

摘要

The evolving -19 pandemic is placing tremendous pressure on health systems. Across Canada and internationally, elective surgeries are being deferred to spare hospital resources, increase system capacity, and limit nosocomial and community spread of the - o -2 virus that causes -19. That sudden scale-back in operative resources has inevitably led to delays in cancer surgery. However, longer delays to surgery might be associated with worse disease-specific and overall survival ( ) for patients with breast cancer ( a) . An analysis of the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results–Medicare database demonstrated that each 30-day increment between diagnosis and surgery for invasie a was associated with an hazard ratio of 1.09 (95% confidence interval: 1.06 to 1.13; < 0.001) .