Insight Into COVID-19’s Impact On Cancer Care: 5 Years Later

Learn how COVID-19 impacted oncology practice from the uptake of telehealth to delays in screening, with key takeaways from leading oncologists.

Five years have passed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global event that reshaped the health care industry, particularly the cancer care field. Although the World Health Organization declared the end of the pandemic in May 2023, its reverberations continue to impact cancer care.

Oncologists from different specialties gave their insights into how COVID-19 changed patient management and communication while highlighting how the pandemic has accelerated certain trends and exacerbated existing challenges. Read on to see top takeaways CancerNetwork® has gathered through various interviews on the lasting impact of the pandemic.

Marwan G. Fakih, MD

Fakih is a professor in the Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research, associate director for Clinical Sciences, medical director of the Briskin Center for Clinical Research, division chief of GI Medical Oncology, and co-director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center:

“[COVID-19] opened the door for virtual medicine, which allowed access to patients who are far from cancer centers who would have otherwise had difficulties getting second opinions. That allows for more patient access. Even from a research and care perspective, the care of patients is not just for getting an opinion; if a patient can be evaluated virtually and intermittently rather than coming in for a visit every time, that [gives] patients convenience.

You can flip the same thing [I just mentioned] and say that there is sometimes too much reliance on virtual care. There’s a happy medium where one should still see the patient for a physical exam and not overdo virtual visits. It should not be a situation where you say, ‘Hey, we’ve gone 6 months without seeing our patients on chemotherapy because of [COVID-19].’ That’s not what we did [at my institution], but that had been the case in some instances.

[The pandemic] did affect the care of screening. Many patients fell off as far as getting their colonoscopies, which probably meant an increased incidence of more advanced disease because, for a few years, some patients didn’t get their mammography or colonoscopy, etc. Now, we’re playing catch-up in that situation. There have been some positives from the patient access perspective, but [COVID-19] did affect the screening and surveillance of some patients and even delayed prompt surgeries in the heat of the pandemic. Hopefully, that’s all behind us now.”

Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, FASCO

Bardia is a professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, and director of Translational Research Integration at the University of California Los Angeles Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center:

“COVID-19 disrupted routine cancer care. We had to change how we deliver care to patients, including home infusions and virtual visits, some of which were not bad. I think it was a step forward. We had the technology. It also impacted clinical trials, particularly biospecimen collection as well as translational research, but it was great to see the field come together to ensure that patients receive access to the latest treatments. Many of the clinical trials completed enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic and are seeing the results from those studies. It’s important to continue with the progress and continue to improve outcomes for our patients with cancer.”

Ritu Salani, MD

Salani is the director of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of California Los Angeles, and ONCOLOGY® editorial advisory board member:

“The role of telehealth and [the ability] for patients to do visits remotely has been a good thing. We’ve been able to provide patients care, be able to connect with them, and get the information that we need. The only limitation is the inability to do the physical examination and vitals. However, [telehealth] has enhanced care. It’s been a good thing that happened from [COVID-19] because patients don’t have to take as much time from work. They don’t have to drive and park at that institution, or their family members don’t have to. From a cost-saving [perspective], and from a provider standpoint, we’re not missing anything. This is not just for patients who are receiving chemotherapy, but even for patients who are on follow-up. Examination is important, but [it] may not be necessary for every single visit [to be in person].

Using telehealth in a fashion that can enhance care and minimize disruptions for patients is a great tool that we should be using more often. We need to make sure that insurance companies are reimbursing physicians because it is still time-consuming and a medical service that we’re providing.”

Scarlett Lin Gomez, PhD, MPH

Gomez is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and co-leader of the Cancer Control Program at UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center:

“I can address from a cancer surveillance and epidemiology perspective how [COVID-19] has changed cancer care for good or bad. There were a lot of important lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a very terrible time globally, but one thing that we learned is that...the impacts of the pandemic were much worse for some populations than others. What came out of the pandemic was this recognition of the importance of these upstream structural and social drivers of health, as we recognize that there were populations right here in our country that were more impacted than others in terms of having infections, as well as outcomes following infection. The pandemic has helped to pave recognition of the importance of upstream factors.

Another more practical outcome for cancer care that came out of the pandemic was forcing us to change some of the ways that we deliver cancer care, and health care in general, to incorporate more telehealth. It remains to be seen how much some of it was positive or negative, but generally, the fact that we have new technology as we were forced to switch to technology does conceptually help us to reach more segments of the population, particularly those who may not have easy physical access to health care providers.”

Elizabeth Zhang-Velten, MD

Zhang-Velten is a radiation oncologist at Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC):

“One silver lining of the pandemic has been the use of telemedicine. A lot of patients, when they [have] a devastating diagnosis—a very intimidating diagnosis—they want to seek specialized care, perhaps in an academic medical center. With us being far away, it’s nice to have the option of telemedicine to have these important discussions with as little disruption to the patient’s routine and life as possible.

During the [COVID-19] times, there was an interest in shorter courses of radiation. That’s been a direction within the field for decades, but especially with the pandemic, interests in considering fewer clinic visits and less exposure for patients have increased.”

Frances Elaine Chow, MD

Chow is a neuro-oncologist at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center:

“The COVID-19 pandemic showed how resilient not only patients can be but medicine as a field, that if we’re up against something, we find ways to adapt or try to make things better and to adjust to the pandemic. I do think that the silver lining is that we’ve been able to make access to specialized care possible for more patients who live farther away, who can’t travel, or who are too ill to leave their homes, and I hope that can continue. I don’t imagine that ever going completely away just because it does provide access that otherwise, before this, we never had. Hopefully, we won’t run into other pandemics or world-changing conditions, but we will continue to evolve and develop as a field to make things easier for our patients.”

Reference

WHO chief declares end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency. UN News. May 5, 2023. Accessed March 7, 2025. https://shorturl.at/TeSOt