By Carla K. Johnson
Many Americans have been forced to postpone cancer screening – colonoscopies, mammograms and pulmonary analyzes – for several months in 2020 while the COVVI -19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals.
But this delay in screening has no enormous impact on cancer statistics, at least none that can be seen by experts who follow the data.
Cancer mortality rates continue to drop, and there have been no huge changes in late diagnostics, according to a new report published Monday in the journal Cancer. This is the widest and most important analysis of the effect of the pandemic on American cancer data.
In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, a larger share of American cancers was captured in subsequent stages, when they are more difficult to treat. But in 2021, these disturbing diagnoses returned to the prepondemic levels for most types of cancer.
“It’s very reassuring,” said the main author, Reinda Sherman of the North American association of Central Cancer registers. “Until now, we have not seen an excess of diagnostics at an advanced stage”, which makes it unlikely that there are higher mortality rates linked to the pandemic.
Similarly, the number of new cases of cancer fell in 2020, but then returned to prepondeal levels by 2021. The size of the 2020 decline in new diagnosed cancers was similar between states, despite variations in COVVI-19 political restrictions. Researchers note that human behavior and local hospital policies have played more role than state policy restrictions.
The cervical cancer diagnoses and prostate cancer increased in 2021, but the changes were not important. Data analysis does not pass until 2021, so it is not the last word.
“We have not seen any notable change,” said Sherman. “It is therefore really unlikely that people with an aggressive disease were not diagnosed during this period.”
The report was produced by the North American Association of Central Cancer Cancer Registers, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society.
The Department of Health and Sciences of the Associated Press receives the support of the scientific and educational group of the media from the medical institute Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
