ACS: COVID-19 will disrupt cancer reporting for years

Editor's Note

New research from the American College of Surgeons and American Cancer Society describes ways the National Cancer Database (NCDB) was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the study, researchers reviewed 4,045,097 cancer cases of adults 18 years or older who were diagnosed with cancer and/or received their first-course treatment from January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2020.

Among the key findings:

• The pandemic was linked to significant changes in diagnoses of all cancer types in 2020, with a 14.4% decrease in the number of reported cases, compared to the previous year. This decrease represents more than 200,000 cancer cases that were not diagnosed and/or treated.
• The missing cancer cases are expected to appear in 2021 data and beyond, probably at advanced stages.
• The proportion of patients diagnosed with early-stage cancer decreased from March to June 2020, followed by an increase in the proportion of those diagnosed with late-stage cancer, peaking in April 2020.
• The proportion of White patients with cancer significantly increased, while the proportion of Asian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Black, and other/unknown patients significantly decreased, suggesting that certain racial and ethnic groups were less likely to be diagnosed and/or treated.
• Cancer rates increased in patients 60 to 69 and 70 to 79 years of age, suggesting that patients younger than 60 and older than 80 were less likely to be diagnosed or treated.

The researchers note that the data show that individuals did not have to have COVID-19 to suffer during the pandemic.