Late-stage cancer diagnoses rise after pandemic-related drop in screenings

ABSTRACT

A study of U.S. Health Care Cost Institute and American Cancer Society data, published in April in The American Surgeon, showed increases not only in diagnoses of lung/bronchus (0.29%), pancreatic (1.46%), breast (2.89%), colorectal (19.72%) and prostate cancer (144.5%) in 2020 (P < .01 for all), but also in the total number of deaths due to colorectal, pancreatic, breast and prostate cancers from 2019 to 2021. A study of visits to Moores Cancer Center at University of California, San Diego Health in 2019 vs. 2020 showed a numeric increase in the percentage of patients with colorectal cancer who presented with stage IV disease (6.7% [n = 3] vs. 19.5% [n = 8];OR = 0.3;95% CI, 0.05-1.37) and a numeric decrease in the number who presented with stage I disease (17.8% [n = 8] vs. 14.6% [n = 6];OR = 1.26;95% CI, 0.34-4.88). Specifically, three established Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network breast cancer models projected 950 cumulative excess breast cancer deaths associated with decreased screening, 1,314 associated with delayed diagnosis of symptomatic cases and 151 associated with decreased use of chemotherapy in women with hormone receptor-positive, earlystage disease. [...]we observed a decrease of approximately 50% in screenings as patients who were supposed to come to the hospital for screening did not out of fear," Villena-Vargas said during an interview with Healio ;HemOnc Today.