부산대학교 도서관

Objectives The COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented and led to drastic reductions in nonurgent medical visits. Deferral of these visits may have critical health impact, including delayed diagnosis for melanoma and other skin cancers. We examined the influence of the pandemic on skin biopsy rates in a large population-based cohort. Approach Using the universal health care claims dataset from Ontario, Canada, we examined skin biopsies from January 6, 2020 to September 27, 2020, and compared these to the same period for 2019. Those diagnosed with anogenital cancers, younger than 20 years, residing out-of-province and with lapses in coverage were excluded. The sensitivity and specificity of claims diagnoses were evaluated with a validated algorithm that identifies keratinocyte carcinoma (KC) in Ontario, and the Ontario Cancer Registry for melanoma cancer. Factors associated with biopsy during the early pandemic were investigated with modified Poisson regression. Results A precipitous drop in total skin biopsies (down to 15% of expected), biopsies for KC (18%) and melanoma (27%) was seen with the onset of COVID-19 cases (p