Comparison of Renal Cell Cancer Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic with Prepandemic Period, Turkey Multicenter Study

Objective: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic changed various priorities in health area. Many elective surgeries for renal cell cancers (RCC) have been postponed. We examined the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the surgical treatment of RCC in Turkey. Materials and Methods: Surgically treated 457 patients for kidney tumor, from March 1, 2019 to February 28, 2021 in 9 centers in Turkey were analyzed retrospectively. Results: The number of surgical treatments for RCC during the COVID-19 pandemic has decreased significantly, in contrast to the same period before COVID-19. Admission symptoms were similar in these two periods (p=0.32). However, although not statistically significant, the rate of admission to hospital due to hematuria was higher during the pandemic period compared to the prepandemic period (14.4% vs 9.8%, respectively). The two study periods differed significantly in terms of the rate of metastatic RCC detected in preoperative imaging (13.1% vs 6.1%, during COVID-19 and pre-COVID-19, respectively) (p=0.01). Moreover, the study periods differed significantly in terms of time between imaging and operation [35 (2-240) vs 30 (1-210) days, during COVID-19 and pre-COVID-19, respectively] (p=0.01). However, these two periods were similar in terms of tumor size, type of surgery, and pathological stage (p >= 0.05). Although the pathological stages were similar among the groups, nephrectomies due to the metastatic disease were significantly higher in the pandemic period (p=0.01). Conclusion: The number of RCC-related surgeries were significantly decreased during the pandemic period. However, the rate of surgery for metastatic disease has significantly increased.