Months of lockdowns may have delayed enough crucial cancer screenings to create a wave of advanced cancers in the coming months, experts worry.
For weeks and even months, patients were often unable to schedule routine doctor’s visits, screenings, and other preventive care appointments, as all but immediately necessary procedures were put on hold. And those lockdowns could have a devastating impact in the coming months.
According to research published in the March 2022 issue of JNCCN (Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network), data from Ontario Cancer Registry (from September 25, 2016 through September 26, 2020) indicated a dramatic drop of 34% in initial diagnoses in March of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic forced lockdowns around the globe.
Antoine Eskander, MD, ScM, ICES, Toronto, Ontario, explained: “Our data demonstrates that many cancers have gone undetected due to the disruptions in the healthcare system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is concerning because a delay in diagnosis for cancer is associated with a lower chance of cure. Healthcare providers should encourage patients to catch up on their cancer screening if any have been missed during the pandemic, and should use a low threshold to investigate patients with any unusual symptoms that may be related to an undiagnosed cancer.”
According to the data, the drop in diagnoses came from both cancers that have routine screening programs — such as breast cancer, cervical cancer, and colorectal cancer — and those that do not have regular screening. The lack of screening, the researchers said, likely resulted in over 12,000 missed cancer diagnoses.
Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was not a part of the research compiled in the Ontario study, but he agreed that the delay in screenings — and in some cases, the failure to get screenings at all — would ultimately strain the health care system.
“The pandemic has caused dramatic changes in the health care system, including a worrisome decline in cancer screening,” Burstein explained. “This study is a well done report from Ontario, Canada, where province-wide records are available, and it shows a huge decline in screening for colorectal (colonoscopy), cervical (Pap smear), and breast cancer (mammogram) in the early months of the pandemic. Similar findings have been reported at major health centers across North America, Europe, and other countries with widespread screening programs.”
The missed diagnoses — and delayed screenings — have raised the possibility that patients coming in for screenings as pandemic fears lessen may be outside the often-crucial early-detection window by the time they can be treated.
Steve Serrao, chief of gastroenterology at a hospital in Moreno Valley, California, told Vox that a surge in advanced cancers might be the next “wave” that the world could face.
“Our next surge will be advanced chronic disease. That’s going to be the next surge of patients who overwhelm our system. I don’t think our systems are ready,” he warned.
“I think we are absolutely in uncharted territory. There are no examples I know of where we have seen numbers change this dramatically,” Brian Englum, a University of Maryland surgeon, agreed. “We could be years into this before we know there’s a problem, and we’ve already lost a lot of people.”
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Source: Dailywire
