Pandemic related delays in care are resulting in more advanced stage cancers being discovered. Many patients either skipped or have been forced to delay screening exams or followups over the past year since the pandemic started. The drop off in patient visits was significant, and physicians started voicing concern that this would lead to another kind of pandemic: advanced stage cancers that should have been identified during screening exams. Patients and facilities are now seeing the unfortunate results of these delays. The pandemic-induced delays in treatment is resulting in more patients with advanced stage cancer.

Screening exams are performed in order to catch cancer before symptoms develop. The idea is that for many cancers, symptoms only being to appear in more advanced stages of the disease. And when the disease is more advanced, it will require more invasive treatment, and is more likely to metastasize into the vital organs and shorten someone’s life.

The threat of COVID-19 has been very much on peoples’ minds in making these decisions to pursue screening exams. Many people have been balancing the concern over something that very much exists (COVID-19) against something that might not (cancer). Unfortunately, those decisions are creating bad outcomes for many people.

Many patients, too, have tried to ignore their symptoms for as long as they possibly could. Additionally, telehealth visits miss a lot of the issues that may be present and helpful for identifying an early cancer diagnosis. So, while telehealth certainly has its place in many care areas, complicated conditions may be getting missed.

No studies have yet been published regarding the actual number of patients with late-discovered cancer. They will no doubt follow, and we will cover these reports in the future.