TY  - JOUR
A1  - Harke, Nina N.
A1  - Wagner, Christian
A1  - Hermann, Robert M.
A1  - Hadaschik, Boris A.
A1  - Radtke, Jan Philipp
A1  - Altay-Langguth, Alev
A1  - Aufderklamm, Stefan
A1  - Bach, Christian
A1  - Becker-Schiebe, Martina
A1  - Blana, Andreas
A1  - Bruns, Frank
A1  - Buse, Stephan
A1  - Combs, Stephanie E.
A1  - Engels, Christina L.
A1  - Ezzibdeh, Emad
A1  - Fiedler, Marcel
A1  - Fischer, Laura-Anna
A1  - Farzat, Mahmoud
A1  - Frismann, Alexander
A1  - Heck, Matthias M.
A1  - Henkenberens, Christoph
A1  - Roesch, Marie C.
A1  - Käding, Christoph
A1  - Klautke, Gunther
A1  - Krausewitz, Philipp
A1  - Kuczyk, Markus A.
A1  - Leitsmann, Conrad
A1  - Lettmaier, Sebastian
A1  - Mahjoub, Samy
A1  - Manseck, Andreas
A1  - Medenwald, Daniel
A1  - Meyer, Andreas
A1  - Micke, Oliver
A1  - Moritz, Rudolf
A1  - Ott, Marcel
A1  - Peters, Inga
A1  - Pokupic, Sasa
A1  - Porres, Daniel
A1  - Preisser, Felix
A1  - Reichel, Kathrin
A1  - Schneider, Andreas
A1  - Schwentner, Christian
A1  - Scobioala, Sergiu
A1  - Truss, Michael
A1  - Wegener, Daniel
A1  - Wezel, Felix
A1  - Willborn, Kay
A1  - Witt, Jörn H.
A1  - Wittig, Andrea
A1  - Wittlinger, Michael
A1  - Wolff, Hendrik A.
A1  - Zimmermanns, Volker
A1  - Christiansen, Hans
T1  - Lessons learned after one year of COVID-19 from a urologist and radiotherapist view: a German survey on prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment
T2  - PLoS ONE
N2  - Introduction: Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, COVID-19 has changed the medical landscape. International recommendations for localized prostate cancer (PCa) include deferred treatment and adjusted therapeutic routines. 

Materials and methods: To longitudinally evaluate changes in PCa treatment strategies in urological and radiotherapy departments in Germany, a link to a survey was sent to 134 institutions covering two representative baseline weeks prior to the pandemic and 13 weeks from March 2020 to February 2021. The questionnaire captured the numbers of radical prostatectomies, prostate biopsies and case numbers for conventional and hypofractionation radiotherapy. The results were evaluated using descriptive analyses. 

Results: A total of 35% of the questionnaires were completed. PCa therapy increased by 6% in 2020 compared to 2019. At baseline, a total of 69 radiotherapy series and 164 radical prostatectomies (RPs) were documented. The decrease to 60% during the first wave of COVID-19 particularly affected low-risk PCa. The recovery throughout the summer months was followed by a renewed reduction to 58% at the end of 2020. After a gradual decline to 61% until July 2020, the number of prostate biopsies remained stable (89% to 98%) during the second wave. The use of RP fluctuated after an initial decrease without apparent prioritization of risk groups. Conventional fractionation was used in 66% of patients, followed by moderate hypofractionation (30%) and ultrahypofractionation (4%). One limitation was a potential selection bias of the selected weeks and the low response rate. 

Conclusion: While the diagnosis and therapy of PCa were affected in both waves of the pandemic, the interim increase between the peaks led to a higher total number of patients in 2020 than in 2019. Recommendations regarding prioritization and fractionation routines were implemented heterogeneously, leaving unexplored potential for future pandemic challenges.
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/docId/124766
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-opus4-1247667
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 17
IS  - 6
SP  - e0269827
PB  - Public Library of Science (PLoS)
ER  -