Europe Faces 'Cancer 'Epidemic' After Estimated 1Million Cases Missed During Covid

[appalachiablue]

- 'Europe faces ‘cancer epidemic’ after estimated 1m cases missed during Covid,' The Guardian, Nov. 15, 2022. - Ed.

Report says 100m screenings lost because of pandemic, which had ‘chilling effect’ on research.

Experts have warned that Europe faces a “cancer epidemic” unless urgent action is taken to boost treatment & research, after an estimated 1m diagnoses were missed during the pandemic. The impact of Covid-19 and the focus on it has exposed “weaknesses” in cancer health systems & in the cancer research landscape across the continent, which, if not addressed as a matter of urgency, will set back cancer outcomes by almost a decade, leading healthcare and scientific experts say.

A report, European Groundshot – Addressing Europe’s Cancer Research Challenges: a Lancet Oncology Commission, brought together a wide range of patient, scientific, and healthcare experts with detailed knowledge of cancer across Europe. One unintended consequence of the pandemic was the adverse effects that the rapid repurposing of health services and national lockdowns, & their continuing legacy, have had on cancer services, on cancer research, & on patients with cancer, the experts said.

“To emphasise the scale of this problem, we estimate that about 1m cancer diagnoses might have been missed across Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic,” they wrote in The Lancet Oncology. “There is emerging evidence that a higher proportion of patients are diagnosed with later cancer stages compared with pre-pandemic rates as a result of substantial delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment. This cancer stage shift will continue to stress European cancer systems for years to come.

“These issues will ultimately compromise survival and contribute to inferior quality of life for many European patients with cancer.”

The report analysed data and found clinicians saw 1.5 million fewer patients with cancer in the first year of the pandemic, with one in two patients with cancer not receiving surgery or chemotherapy in a timely manner. About 100m screenings were missed, and it is estimated that as many as 1 million European citizens may have an undiagnosed cancer as a result of the backlog. “We estimate that approximately 1m cancer diagnoses were missed across Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Prof Mark Lawler, of Queen’s University Belfast, the chair & lead author of the commission. “We are in a race against time to find those missing cancers...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/15/europe-faces-cancer-epidemic-after-estimated-1m-cases-missed-during-covid

[childfreebychoice]

1. Doesn't help that Tories have been whittling away

At NHS budget, for yrs. I read somewhere that nhs is short 43 thous nurses, and that patients have died, waiting in line, in ambos, due to staffing shortages. An aside, wonder how many missed getting diagnosed in America, due to pandemic, and lack of health ins

[appalachiablue]

2. Good points, NHS cutbacks, missed cases of cancer & more in the US. Sad times.

[MichMan]

4. Health insurance is useless if the doctors and dentists are ordered to shut down

[MichMan]

3. The lock downs around the world created a myriad of unintended consequences