Study raises renewed alarm about missed cancer diagnoses during pandemic

Since March 2020, COVID-19 has caused a disruption in surgeries and treatments for patients with cancer.

Oncologists have been warning about dangerous gaps in cancer care since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, a nationwide study based on data from Veterans Affairs hospitals is raising new alarms.

Since March 2020, COVID-19 has caused a disruption in surgeries and treatments for patients with cancer. At different periods during the pandemic, some states have also required health care facilities to suspend elective procedures, many of which include cancer screenings, to preserve resources during COVID surges.

"This is an area of tremendous concern," Dr. Norman "Ned" E. Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, said in an interview in Cancer Prevention Research. "The pandemic has affected cancer screening in a dramatic way…a massive screening deficit over the last 12 months—millions of screening events have been missed," Sharpless added.

Compared with yearly averages in 2018 and 2019 as a baseline, the number of completed colonoscopies dropped by 45%; proportions of prostate biopsies decreased by 29% ;and cystoscopies for diagnosing bladder cancer decreased by 21% in 2020, according to the study, published online on the National Center for Biotechnology Information's site.