Disruptions to routine colorectal screenings and checkups could mean physicians will soon begin to see more cases of advanced-stage gastrointestinal cancers than they had before the pandemic.
“Our next surge will be advanced chronic disease,” gastroenterologist Steve Serrao, MD, PhD, told Vox in a Feb. 14 report. “That’s going to be the next surge of patients who overwhelm our system. I don’t think our systems are ready.”
Colonoscopies in 2020 dropped by nearly 50 percent compared to 2019, and prostate biopsies dropped more than 25 percent, the report said. New cancer diagnoses thus fell by 13 to 23 percent, meaning cases weren’t being detected.
“I think we are absolutely in uncharted territory,” University of Maryland surgeon Brian Englum, MD, told Vox. “There are no examples I know of where we have seen numbers change this dramatically.”
A diagnosis delay of just four weeks is linked to a 6 to 13 percent higher risk of death, according to a study published Oct. 16, 2020, in BMJ.
Washington, D.C.-based MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Chief of Oncology John Marshall, MD, told Vox that some of the damage has already been done, and the physicians at his hospital are seeing it firsthand.
“We’re seeing more advanced diagnoses, and people presenting at a stage where they no longer can be cured,” he said.
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