New data has shown for the first time the true impact that the coronavirus pandemic had on the diagnosis of cancer. There was a huge fall in the number of people being given diagnosis for the leading cancers in Wales during the early months of 2020.
The data, which looks at the five more common cancers, showed there was a decrease of up to 25% in the number of people given cancer diagnosis compared to the previous year as the NHS paused screening programmes and many people stopped seeking help for any potential symptoms due to the "stay at home" message.
Cancer diagnoses and the efficacy of cancer treatment relies on it being a timely diagnosis. There is a greater chance of survival if cancer is caught early, so any delay and pause in diagnosis caused by the pandemic very likely has had a huge impact on a person's ability to make a recovery from the disease.
The data shows that while some cancer diagnoses returned to pre-pandemic levels by the summer of 2020 as screening services resumed, but decreased in the latter half of 2020 as coronavirus cases began to increase again.
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Key points:
The largest decrease in diagnosis was in prostate cancer, with a fall of 26.5 per cent.
There was a 17.2% decrease in the diagnosis of breast cancer
There was a 16.7% decrease in the diagnosis of bowel cancer
There was a 10.7% decrease in the diagnosis of lung cancer
There was very little change in the ovarian cancer rate with just a 1.6% decrease.
There was a notable decrease in the diagnosis of cancers at a stage 1. For female breast cancer, the number of new cases diagnosed at stage 1 between April and December 2020 dropped by almost 40 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic average.
Professor Dyfed Wyn Huws, Director of the Welsh Cancer Intelligence & Surveillance Unit (WCISU) at Public Health Wales, said: “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, on cancer diagnosis is shown for the first time today using high quality whole-population cancer registry data.
“The focus of large areas of NHS services to concentrate on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the pause in screening services for some cancers, along with an understandable reluctance by many people to seek NHS help after ‘Stay at Home’ messaging, resulted in a drop in cancer diagnoses, especially at the early stages – which is when treatment options are greater, less onerous for the patient, and more effective.
“The recovery to pre-pandemic levels of diagnosis varied between the cancers, with female breast recovering by September 2020. By contrast, lung and bowel cancer diagnoses recovered to pre-pandemic levels by July 2020, but then decreased below the pre-pandemic average in the final months of 2020.
“It will be important to monitor trends in incidence and stage at diagnoses with cancer registry data over the next few years, in order to fully understand the impact of the pandemic on people with cancer who were not diagnosed during 2020, or who were diagnosed but at a later stage than usual.”
Dr Sharon Hillier, Director of Screening for Public Health Wales, said: “As with the rest of the UK and in many other parts of the world, Public Health Wales’ screening programmes were paused for a period while pandemic restrictions were in place from March 2020. This has inevitably resulted in a decrease in the early stage diagnosis of cancers for which screening programmes are in place.
“During the pause in screening programmes, Breast Test Wales (BTW) staff, worked with several health board’s symptomatic breast screening services, supporting symptomatic assessment appointments in BTW premises.
“All of the cancer screening programmes restarted in Summer of 2020, our teams have worked extremely hard throughout the pandemic to continue to offer our programmes, to recover their timeliness, to maintain safe environments in which screening can take place, and to encourage people to attend their appointments.
“We are also implementing an equity strategy within Public Health Wales’s Screening Division, which is to ensure that everyone who is eligible for screening has equitable access and opportunity to take up their screening offer using reliable information to make a personal informed choice.”
