Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Outcomes of Patients Undergoing Oncological Surgeries: CORONAL Study

The impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on postoperative recovery from oncology surgeries should be understood for the clinical decision-making. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate the postoperative cumulative 28-day mortality and the morbidity of surgical oncology patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. This retrospective cohort study included patients consecutively admitted to intensive care units (ICU) of three centres for postoperative care of oncologic surgeries between March to June 2019 (first phase) and March to June 2020 (second phase). The primary outcome was cumulative 28-day postoperative mortality. Secondary outcomes were postoperative organic dysfunction and the incidence of clinical complications. Because of the possibility of imbalance between groups, adjusted analyses were performed: Cox proportional hazards model (primary outcome) and multiple logistic regression model (secondary outcomes). After screening 328 patients, 291 were included. The proportional hazard of cumulative 28-day mortality was higher in the second phase than that in the first phase in the Cox model, with the adjusted hazard ratio of 4.35 (95