A Comparative Study of the Impact of Coronavirus (COVID -19) on the Therapeutic Practices of Cancer Patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt

Abstract

Cancer patients are considered one of the most vulnerable to infection with Corona virus (COVID-19), especially who are elderly, multiple comorbidities, and are often immunosuppressed by their cancer or therapy. The immune system of cancer patients is very weak compared to the healthy individuals, so, morbidity and mortality of any serious infections expected to be high among them. This research aims to study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on cancer patients practices in Saudi Arabia (KSA) and compare with the result in Egypt. It was conducted through a well-structured questionnaire, among cancer patients either online (KSA) or paper questionnaire (Egypt). The questionnaire consists of 16 questions about Scio-demographic and changes in time and method of treatment (chemotherapy and radiotherapy), postponed of surgical operations. Our results showed significant differences between KSA and Egypt hospital practices; cancer department was affected by postponed appointment (54.8% & 63.3%), diagnosis (32.7% & 60%) and treatment of cancer patients (37.1% & 63.3%) respectively. Also, postponed of chemotherapy/radiotherapy (56.8% & 73.3%), surgical operations (45% & 43.3%), an increase in the deterioration of cancer by (35.5% & 23.3%), switching from parenteral injection to oral (27.8% & 56.7%) and changing in the drug doses (19.5% & 40%) in KSA and Egypt respectively. We can conclude that management of cancer patients during COVID-19 pandemic of great importance and so, switching from parenteral to oral, prolongation of the treatment period and postponed of some surgical operations gave a good opportunity to maintain adequate care of cancer patient with minimum exposure of patients to infection.