Abstract
The pandemic created a crisis of uncertainty in deciding what was best for patients on the cancer pathway. This was a time of increased workload, equipment shortfalls, staff shortage and a risk of nosocomial infection. SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it caused, COVID-19, put a range of cancer work on hold whilst the reset button was pressed on longstanding prioritisation guidelines. Given that the UK cancer targets were created to ensure a timely diagnosis and management plan, it was widely acknowledged that there would be harm to patients. Multiple organisations and research collaboratives from the Head, Neck and Thyroid cancer community came together to form consensus documents regarding what surgery should be performed and in what timeframe. Consensus for thyroid cancer was largely based on the natural course of different subtypes and the curability of late-stage disease. The recommendations aimed to reduce hospital visits and protect the public whilst safeguarding cancer services. Although thyroid cancer was largely deprioritised in these publications, we review the impact this may have had on patients and on surgeons.
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Bola, S., Paleri, V. (2023). Thyroid Cancer Surgery During the Pandemic—UK Perspective. In: Mallick, U.K., Harmer, C. (eds) Practical Management of Thyroid Cancer. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38605-3_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38605-3_25
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