Reported outcome measures for colorectal cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear Sir,

The urgent reorganization of clinical services in response to the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the delivery of colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery. Both patients and surgeons had difficult decisions to make, including individual risk assessment, issues pertaining to informed consent and the safety of laparoscopic surgery.

We explored how our CRC patients felt they had been managed by way of a detailed postoperative telephone questionnaire. Patient‐reported outcome measures (PROMs) were based on the validated Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy – Colorectal Cancer quality of life (QOL) survey [1, 2], adapted to specifically address the COVID‐19 situation. Patient details were accessed from the hospital’s electronic database.

Over 9 weeks (17 March 2020 to 19 May 2020) we cautiously treated 21 CRC patients comprising 16 men and 5 women (median age 67.5 years, range 55–84 years). Nineteen patients underwent elective surgery (COVID‐19 screened) and two had emergency surgery. Three patients (14%) were diagnosed with COVID‐19 during admission, and there was one death. Overall median patient satisfaction score was 10/10 (range 3–10), but there was variation in QOL scoring dependent on the question subscale (Table 1).

Table 1

COVID‐19 quality of life survey outcomes.

QOL score subscales	Median	Range
Physical (0–12)	9	4–11
Social (0–12)	12	6–12
Emotional (0–12)	7	3–10
Functional (0–12)	10	8–12
COVID‐19: psychological impact (0–8)	4	0–8
COVID‐19: practical impact (0–8)	6.5	4–8
Overall QOL score (0–64)	46.5	30–61

This PROM has given us insight into the clinical reality that these patients faced. Whilst overall satisfaction scores were high, additional attention needs to be focused on the emotional and psychological well‐being of future CRC patients should there be another wave of infection.

Conflicts of interest

None of the authors have any conflicting interest to declare.

Ethics and Service evaluation

No ethics committee review required.

Consent

All patients consented to data collection, analysis and dissemination.