Publication date: Sep 18, 2025
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted healthcare and worsened quality of life (QOL). Advanced esophageal cancer is often accompanied by malnutrition and poor QOL; chemoradiotherapy (CRT) remains the mainstay of treatment. We evaluated nutrition and QOL pre- and post-CRT immediately before and during the pandemic. Patients with esophageal cancer who underwent neoadjuvant or definitive CRT between April 2019 and December 2020 were enrolled. Disease severity, treatment timing, and outcomes were compared for cohorts treated pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19. Nutritional status was measured with the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA). QOL was measured with the Mandarin Chinese version of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer core questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) and the esophageal site-specific module (QLQ-OES18). In the pandemic cohort, pre-/post-CRT paired analyses were performed. Eighty-four patients were enrolled. The median diagnosis to treatment interval lengthened during COVID-19 (17. 8 days vs. 24. 2 days, p=0. 04). Among the patients treated during the COVID-19 pandemic, nutritional status improved significantly following CRT (p=0. 003). In the EORTC QLQ-C30, post-CRT scores for global health status (p
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Chemoradiotherapy | Chemoradiotherapy |
| Coronavirus | COVID-19 |
| December | Esophageal neoplasms |
| Malnutrition | Nutrition |
| Nutritional | Quality of life |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | Nutritional Status |
| disease | IDO | quality |
| disease | MESH | Esophageal Cancer |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 Pandemic |
| disease | MESH | malnutrition |
| disease | MESH | Cancer |
| disease | IDO | site |
| disease | MESH | health status |
| disease | MESH | Long Covid |