From February 2021, data is only published for the suspected cancer pathway. Targets for the urgent and not via the urgent pathway have ceased and no new data will be collected or published for these pathways. The patients shown here are those newly diagnosed with cancer who started definitive treatment via the Urgent Suspected Cancer route. The national target for these patients is: at least 95 per cent of patients diagnosed with cancer, via the urgent suspected cancer route will start definitive treatment within 62 days of receipt of referral. From 1st April 2019 health service provision for residents of Bridgend local authority moved from Abertawe Bro Morgannwg to Cwm Taf. For more information see the joint statement from Cwm Taf and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Boards (see weblinks). The health board names have changed with Cwm Taf University Health Board becoming Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board becoming Swansea Bay University Health Board. A link to the statement from the minister for health and social service can be found in the weblinks section.

From February 2021, data is only published for the suspected cancer pathway. Targets for the urgent and not via the urgent pathway have ceased and no new data will be collected or published for these pathways. The patients shown here are those treated via the non urgent route. The national target for these patients is: at least 98 per cent of patients newly diagnosed with cancer, not via the urgent route will start definitive treatment within 31 days of diagnosis (regardless of the referral route). From 1st April 2019 health service provision for residents of Bridgend local authority moved from Abertawe Bro Morgannwg to Cwm Taf. For more information see the joint statement from Cwm Taf and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Boards (see weblinks). The health board names have changed with Cwm Taf University Health Board becoming Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board becoming Swansea Bay University Health Board. A link to the statement from the minister for health and social service can be found in the weblinks section.

Long waiting times for elective surgery reflect not just backlog issues but systemic inefficiencies that disrupt the smooth flow of patients through the surgical care pathway. This systematic review adopts a holistic approach to summarize global policies, strategies, and interventions aimed at reducing elective surgery wait times. A comprehensive electronic search was performed in PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library from December 2019 to January 2020 and updated in April 2022. Eligible studies, published after 2013, focused on waiting lists for major elective surgeries in adults, excluding cancer-related surgeries. Both randomized and non-randomized studies and systematic reviews were included. Study quality was assessed using ROBINS-I, AMSTAR 2, and CASP tools, as appropriate. The review was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42019158455) and reported using a PRISMA flow diagram. From 7543 records, 92 articles met the inclusion criteria. Evidence was categorized into seven strategic areas: referral management, patient prioritization, preventing scheduled surgery cancellations, perioperative time management, quality improvement methods for surgical care pathways, and waiting time targets for hospitals. Strategies such as referral management, patient prioritization, and preventing cancellations had the most significant impact on reducing waiting times, while perioperative time management and waiting time targets proved less effective. The review highlights that targeted interventions at different stages of the surgical care pathway yield variable impacts on overall waiting times. While individual measures had limited effects, combining multiple short-term strategies may be more beneficial, particularly for health systems recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

BackgroundThe ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on the healthcare systems. This study evaluated the safety of colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA systematic review and meta-analysis were performed according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines (PROSPERO ID: CRD 42022327968). Relevant articles were systematically searched in the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases. The postoperative complications, anastomotic leakage, postoperative mortality, 30-day readmission, tumor stage, total hospitalization, postoperative hospitalization, preoperative waiting, operation time, and hospitalization in the intensive care unit (ICU) were compared between the pre-pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic periods.ResultsAmong the identified 561 articles, 12 met the inclusion criteria. The data indicated that preoperative waiting time related to CRC surgery was higher during the COVID-19 pandemic (MD, 0.99; 95%CI, 0.71–1.28; p < 0.00001). A similar trend was observed for the total operative time (MD, 25.07; 95%CI, 11.14–39.00; p =0.0004), and on T4 tumor stage during the pandemic (OR, 1.77; 95%CI, 1.22–2.59; p=0.003). However, there was no difference in the postoperative complications, postoperative 90-day mortality, anastomotic leakage, and 30-day readmission times between pre-COVID-19 pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic periods. Furthermore, there was no difference in the total hospitalization time, postoperative hospitalization time, and hospitalization time in ICU related to CRC surgery before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic did not affect the safety of CRC surgery. The operation of CRC during the COVID-19 pandemic did not increase postoperative complications, postoperative 90-day mortality, anastomotic leakage, 30-day readmission, the total hospitalization time, postoperative hospitalization time, and postoperative ICU hospitalization time. However, the operation of CRC during COVID-19 pandemic increased T4 of tumor stage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the preoperative waiting and operation times were longer during the COVID-19 pandemic. This provides a reference for making CRC surgical strategy in the future.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42022327968.

While a publicly available benchmark dataset provides a base for the development of new algorithms and comparison of results, hospital-based data collected from the real-world clinical setup is also very important in automated AI-based medical research likewise in disease diagnosis or categorization of predicted disease for tissue level staging or any class identification as per standard protocol so that the developed algorithm works with as much accuracy as possible in the regional context. The repository supports research work related to image segmentation and final classification for a complete decision support system. Liquid based cytology is one of the cervical screening tests. The repository consists of total 963 images sub-divided into four sets of images representing the four classes of pre-cancerous and cancerous lesions of cervical cancer as per standards under The Bethesda System. The pap smear images were captured in 40x magnification using Leica ICC50 HD microscope which is collected and prepared using the liquid-based cytology technique from 460 patients. Microscopic investigation of abnormal changes in cell-level enables detection of malignancy or pre-malignant characteristics. This procedure is time-consuming and subject to inter or intra-observer variability which is why computer-assisted diagnosis can improve the overall disease diagnosis time period to proceed with rapid treatment and therapy which can limit late diagnosis of cervical cancer.