London & New York, NY (May 6, 2020) – As the world prepares to acknowledge Global Ovarian Cancer day on Friday 8th May, Kantar today announces the launch of an online medical platform to help oncologists during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kantar Oncology Platform provides anonymized and aggregated patient data tracking the changes, delays and modifications of cancer treatment decisions made as the world’s medical infrastructures pivots to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the interruption of cancer diagnosis and treatments on a massive scale. In the USA for example, in March, appointments for screenings for cancers of the cervix, colon, and breast were down between 86% and 94%1. In the UK, weekly data until April 2020 shows significant falls in admissions for chemotherapy (45-66% reduction) and urgent referrals for early cancer diagnosis (70-89%reduction), compared to pre-emergency levels2.
COVID-19 is stressing the normal monitoring infrastructure and pushing the healthcare system to adapt and embrace a more flexible and agile approach to patient monitoring and patient care. Kantar Oncology platform applies those principles to monitor changes in treatment during the current crisis. The platform is freely available to all oncologists who can contribute five or more electronic case report forms to help build the database. With Kantar Oncology Platform, physicians involved in cancer patient care across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States are now able to view how specific patient’s profiles are being cared for during this crisis. Participating physicians can filter the data by country, tumor type, comorbidities, patient profile (age, performance status), treatment(s).
“We created this platform after hearing concerns from oncologists and related specialists that they lack sufficient data to make informed decisions during the current medical crisis,” said Julien Goretti, health division, Kantar. “More than 300 physicians have already connected to the platform and gained access to aggregated data for nearly 1,000 patients. The response from physicians has been significant in hard-hit countries, such as Italy and Spain. We look forward to providing continued support to the oncology community during this crisis.”
Kantar is a trusted partner in the oncology field with over 25 years of insights in large tumour types to rare sub-mutational driver cancers providing data and insights through platforms such as CancerMPact, Cancerology, and Oncology Market Tracker. Physicians can learn more about Kantar Oncology Platform and request access by contacting santhara.silva@kantar.com.
Sources
1. https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/04/cancer-screenings-drop-coronavirus-pandemic-epic/
2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340984562_Estimating_excess_mortality_in_people_with_cancer_and_multimorbidity_in_the_COVID-19_emergency