Emergency Department Visits among Cancer Patients during SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

SIMPLE SUMMARY: During COVID 19 pandemic, cancer patients, their caregivers and physicians needed to balance the challenges associated with pandemic ensuring cancer care. In this paper, we analysed ED visits during the 72 days of the pandemic in 2020 (Italian lockdown period) and compared them to the ED visits in the same calendar days in 2019 and 2021. We compared their severity, outcome (admission vs. discharge vs. death vs. hospice/palliative care), method of arrival to the ED and type of tumours affecting patients, suggesting that pandemic related emotional distress and hospital departmental reorganization could have nega-tively influenced ED admissions. Our aim was to highlight how much the government restrictive measures could have had an impact on emergency care for fragile patients such as cancer patients and help to understand how to reconcile the health needs of a specific class of patients with the need to protect public health. ABSTRACT: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a global impact. Patients with cancer, their caregivers, and physicians need to balance the challenges associated with COVID-19 while ensuring cancer care. Nevertheless, emotional distress and hospital departmental reorganization could have led to a decrease in ED admissions even among oncological patients. Methods: We compared the 72 days of the pandemic in 2020 with the same calendar days in 2019 and 2021, defining a 20% decrease in ED visits as clinically significant. We studied the cause for visit, its severity, outcome (admission vs. discharge vs. death vs. hospice/palliative care), the tumor site, and method of arrival to the ED for the 3 time periods. Results: A significant decrease in ED oncological visits was found in 2020 compared to 2019, before returning to similar numbers in 2021. Fear, anxiety, and worry, in addition to hospital departmental reorganization, surely had an important role in the delay of ED visits, which resulted in irreparable consequences.