Trends in patients' willingness for cancer care and the number of registered cancer cases in Ehime Prefecture during the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVE Cancer care in Japan is on a rebound to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate the recovery of cancer care in Ehime Prefecture, Japan. DATA SOURCE AND DESIGN This study collected data from the hospital-based cancer registry (HBCR) as well as the number of outpatients, medical information provision fee payments (MIP2), and second opinion patients (SOP) from the Council of Ehime cancer care hospitals (ECCH). Then cancer care and patient requests for hospital transfers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were analyzed. RESULTS The HBCR from the ECCH comprises >80% of cancer cases in Ehime Prefecture. In 2020, the numbers of all registered cases, first-line treatment cases, and cases detected by cancer screening in the HBCR decreased from those in 2018-2019. In 2021, they increased to almost the same levels as those in 2020. In contrast, the number of registered patients that changed hospitals (hospital-change cases) after first-line treatments, patients who lived outside the metropolitan area of Ehime but registered in metropolitan hospitals, MIP2, and SOP decreased further in 2021 after decreasing in 2020. Furthermore, using the Wilcoxon rank sum test, the monthly numbers of hospital-change cases, MIP2, and SOP were significantly smaller in 2021 than in 2018-2019. CONCLUSION The assessed indicators suggest that the willingness of cancer patients to improve and/or advance cancer care had not returned to pre-pandemic levels by 2021. Hence, psychological measures in society and support for patient caregivers are necessary to prevent self-restraint in patients receiving cancer care.