Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on head-neck cancer referral and treatment pathway in North East London

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to wide-ranging disruption of head-neck cancer (HNC) service provision in the UK. Early reports suggest delays in referral, diagnosis and initiation of treatment for new cancer cases compared with before the pandemic. The HNC service was studied retrospectively for the time-periods between 1 January 2020 to 31 October 2020 (hereafter 'post-COVID') and 1 January 2019 to 31 October 2019 (hereafter 'pre-COVID'). We analysed: (1) the number of cases treated at our centre, (2) stage of disease at presentation and (3) treatment delivery times. In the post-COVID period, the total number of HNC cases treated decreased (48 vs 56 pre-COVID). There was increase in advanced stage at presentation (58% vs 42% pre-COVID) and a significant increase in the need for airway stabilisation (13 vs 5 pre-COVID; =0.03). Average time from referral to treatment was significantly prolonged (72.5 days vs 49.23 days pre-COVID; =0.03). Two-week wait referrals were seen in HNC clinics at median time of 11.9 days, compared with 7.1 days during the pre-COVID period ( =0.07). However, there was no delay in the initiation of first treatment after the decision to treat (29.2 days vs 24.7 days pre-COVID; =0.58). The results of this study call for early referral at the primary care level and rapid radiopathological confirmation at the tertiary level to prevent delays in diagnosis of new HNC cases.