Abstract
PURPOSE: During the major shift in China's policies on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many residents will be infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) over a short period, including a few patients with breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Moreover, it is unknown whether this comorbidity affects the efficacy of NAC for breast cancer and the patient's psychological state and quality of life (QOL). This study aims to answer these questions. METHODS: The clinical data of 2,793 patients with breast cancer who received NAC at The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University were retrospectively collected. The infected and non-infected groups were divided according to whether they were infected with COVID-19 during NAC. Propensity score matching was used to reduce patient selection bias. The effectiveness, psychological well-being, and QOL of the two groups were compared. RESULTS: No discernible differences were observed in the pathological complete response rates (p = 0.307) and major histological responses rate (p = 0.398) between the infected and non-infected groups. Following the full course of NAC, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment General (p < 0.001) and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy for Breast Cancer (p < 0.001) were lower in the infected group than the non-infected group, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) anxiety scale (p < 0.001) and HADS depression scale (p < 0.001) were considerably higher in the infected group than the non-infected group. CONCLUSION: With timely treatment and effective medical management, SARS-CoV-2 does not appear to affect the efficacy of NAC; however, it can significantly affect the QOL of patients and increase their psychological distress. Therefore, in addition to a timely assessment of the efficacy of NAC, it is necessary to dynamically understand the patient's psychological state and QOL.