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Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on care of oncological patients: experience of a cancer center in a Latin American pandemic epicenter

Overview of attention for article published in Einstein (São Paulo), December 2020
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (74th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (80th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 policy source
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5 X users

Citations

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42 Dimensions

Readers on

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89 Mendeley
Title
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on care of oncological patients: experience of a cancer center in a Latin American pandemic epicenter
Published in
Einstein (São Paulo), December 2020
DOI 10.31744/einstein_journal/2021ao6282
Pubmed ID
Authors

Sérgio Eduardo Alonso Araujo, Alessandro Leal, Ana Fernanda Yamazaki Centrone, Vanessa Damazio Teich, Daniel Tavares Malheiro, Adriana Serra Cypriano, Miguel Cendoroglo, Sidney Klajner

Abstract

Since the rising of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there is uncertainty regarding the impact of transmission to cancer patients. Evidence on increased severity for patients undergoing antineoplastic treatment is posed against deferring oncologic treatment. We aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on patient volumes in a cancer center in an epicenter of the pandemic. Outpatient and inpatient volumes were extracted from electronic health record database. Two intervals were compared: pre-COVID-19 (March to May 2019) and COVID-19 pandemic (March to May 2020) periods. The total number of medical appointments declined by 45% in the COVID-19 period, including a 56.2% decrease in new visits. There was a 27.5% reduction in the number of patients undergoing intravenous systemic treatment and a 57.4% decline in initiation of new treatments. Conversely, there was an increase by 309% in new patients undergoing oral chemotherapy regimens and a 5.9% rise in new patients submitted to radiation therapy in the COVID-19 period. There was a 51.2% decline in length of stay and a 60% reduction in the volume of surgical cases during COVID-19. In the stem cell transplant unit, we observed a reduction by 36.5% in length of stay and a 62.5% drop in stem cell transplants. A significant decrease in the number of patients undergoing cancer treatment was observed after COVID-19 pandemic. Although this may be partially overcome by alternative therapeutic options, avoiding timely health care due to fear of getting COVID-19 infection might impact on clinical outcomes. Our findings may help support immediate actions to mitigate this hypothesis.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 89 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 89 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 12 13%
Student > Master 7 8%
Other 6 7%
Researcher 5 6%
Student > Ph. D. Student 5 6%
Other 14 16%
Unknown 40 45%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 23 26%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 6%
Immunology and Microbiology 2 2%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 2 2%
Psychology 2 2%
Other 13 15%
Unknown 42 47%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 May 2022.
All research outputs
#5,231,144
of 25,387,668 outputs
Outputs from Einstein (São Paulo)
#62
of 576 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#132,887
of 519,132 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Einstein (São Paulo)
#4
of 21 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,387,668 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 79th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 576 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.0. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 519,132 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 21 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.