Impact of COVID-19 on cancer care
The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed health care systems worldwide and has created major challenges for clinicians who are caring for patients with cancer.
As previously reported, hospitals reprioritized resources for an impending onslaught of COVID-19 patients. Services and procedures deemed to be nonessential were canceled or delayed, including surgeries and imaging.
In a survey conducted by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, half of the 1219 respondents reported changes, delays, or disruptions to the care they were receiving. The services most frequently affected included in-person provider visits (50%), supportive services (20%), and imaging procedures to monitor tumor growth (20%).
In addition, 8% reported that their treatment, including chemotherapy and immunotherapy, had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the United Kingdom, Cancer Research UK estimated that because of the disruption to cancer services, 2.4 million people did not undergo cancer screening or further testing or did not receive cancer treatment and that tens of thousands of cases have gone undiagnosed.
Similarly, a survey by Macmillan Cancer Support showed that almost half (45%) of cancer patients have experienced delays or cancellations of cancer treatments, or their treatments have been altered as a result of coronavirus, leaving many living in fear. Calling cancer “the forgotten C” of the pandemic, it warned of a potential cancer “time bomb” when, as the number of deaths from COVID-19 falls, cancer returns as the leading cause of death in the United Kingdom.
Last month, a report also predicted that there will be an excess of cancer deaths in both the United States and United Kingdom because of patients not accessing health care services.
The authors calculated that there will be 6270 excess deaths among cancer patients 1 year from now in England and 33,890 excess deaths among cancer patients older than 40 years in the United States.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.