This report from the National Bowel Cancer Audit (NBOCA) covers an audit of the care received by people with bowel cancer in England and Wales diagnosed between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021, as well as those diagnosed between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020 who underwent a major resection after 31 March 2020.
28,523 patients were diagnosed with bowel cancer in England and Wales between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. This report found that there was a substantial reduction in the number of patients diagnosed with bowel cancer during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic across all referral pathways, except for emergency presentations which remained constant. However, the number returned to normal around October 2020.
The report contains numerous key findings around a number of themes including: Quality improvement; care pathways during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic; peri-operative care; oncological management; and rectal cancer management. Examples include:
There have been small improvements in 2-year all-cause mortality by different treatment groups eg for patients not having excision of their tumour, 2-year all-cause mortality reduced from 73% in 2016/17 to 70% in 2018/19
90-day post-operative mortality has increased marginally from 2.7% in 2019/20 to 3.1%
Since 2016/17, the proportion of patients with rectal cancer that have a major resection has reduced from 54% to 47%.
Read the full report: You can see all key findings and read the report in full by clicking on the link below.
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