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COVID-19

Cancer Screenings in the time of COVID

Will you be one of the 10,000?

Cancer Screenings in the time of COVID

On January 20, 2020, a Washington state resident became the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States. Less than two weeks later, the U.S. declared a national emergency concerning the virus. Cases of the coronavirus continued to rise throughout the United States and the world through the next few months. The first sharp rise of cases in the U.S. occurred between June 9, 2020, and July 20, 2020. During this time, this country experienced a 300% increase in cases.

At this time, most hospitals across the country began to free up resources to deal with the influx of COVID-19 patients. One of the means that they opened up resources was by canceling elective procedures at the hospitals. While this may make sense on the surface, who needs a nose job in the middle of a global pandemic? Many of the general public did not know that included in these elective procedures were routine cancer screenings. Simultaneously, local and state governments began instituting stay-at-home orders, further restricting access to the doctor's offices and other medical facilities.


According to research conducted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), cancer screenings dropped during 2020 by as much as 85%.* Additionally, the CDC reported in June of 2021 that its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program saw an 87% decline in screenings for breast cancer and an 84% decrease in cervical cancer screenings.** Another study conducted by the American Cancer Society and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network reported a decrease of over 22 million screenings between March 2020 and June 2020. These 22 million screenings represented a 94% decline in breast, colon, and cervical cancers screening.*** While the studies generated different percentages, we cannot deny one thing, COVID-19 dramatically affected cancer patients in the United States.

These screenings encompassed both first-time symptomatic patients and patients who had a previous diagnosis of cancer. The result was almost universally across the reports cited, an 11% decrease in cancer diagnosis. Unfortunately, cancer did not take a holiday, and many people either were diagnosed later or have yet to be diagnosed. Norman "Ned" Sharples, the director of the National Cancer Institutes, estimates an additional 10,000 deaths in the U.S. because of the delays in screenings and diagnosis caused by COVID-19****.

Earlier this year, many facilities began lifting their restrictions on elective surgeries and allowed for routine cancer screenings to restart. While many patients began undergoing their screenings, the trend in the United States is still not back to pre-COVID-19 levels.

Surgical Centers, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities are implementing many safety precautions against COVID-19. You should feel more comfortable going to see your physician than you would in the grocery store. For an excellent guide to cancer screening, please visit the American Cancer Society at https://www.cancer.org/healthy/find-cancer-early/screening-recommendations-by-age.html.

Some of you may know that I was diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer in 2015. After one surgery to remove the tumors in my bladder and another to remove my prostate, I was declared cancer-free by my doctors on December 23, 2015. I continue to have my bladder checked once a year and am thankful that I did this month. On September 9, 2021, my surgeon found three new cancerous tumors and removed all three during my routine bladder cancer screening. All three were low-grade and early-stage cancer, and further biopsies revealed no other signs of cancer.

Without my routine screening, would I have been one of those 10,000?


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