Project #127:
Prostate cancer incidence and prevalence in the COVID-19 pandemic

Cancer services including cancer diagnosis were heavily disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was designed to investigate the effect of the pandemic on prostate cancer diagnosis overall and by demographics such as age, ethnicity, deprivation, region. We will use primary care records to describe the trends in diagnosis (new and existing) over time from January 2015 to October 2022. We will look if different subgroups of patients (age, ethnicity, deprivation, region) were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in a different way. This knowledge gained from this study will help NHS understand if there was an effect of the pandemic on prostate cancer diagnosis and if this was different for patient with different demographic characteristics. The knowledge could help the NHS improve the services post-pandemic and address the potential backlog that was created by the pandemic.