A total of 80,000-plus diagnoses of five common cancers in the United States are projected to be missed or delayed during the 3-month period of early March to early June because of COVID-19 disruptions to healthcare, according to a report using a medical claims database by the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science.
In the analysis, which is not peer-reviewed, screening and monitoring tests for breast, prostate, colorectal, cervical, and lung cancer were down 39% to 90% during the week ending April 10 compared with the baseline month of February.
The report also showed that overall patient interactions with oncologists were down by 20% through April 3, but there was variation by tumor type.
The American report comes soon after an analysis from the United Kingdom predicted that the current pandemic will result in 6270 excess deaths among cancer patients 1 year from now in England and 33,890 excess deaths among cancer patients in the United States.
