Lung cancer diagnoses fell from March 2020 to May 2020, one of six major cancer types to experience a dip during the early part of the pandemic. 
“These missed opportunities for early cancer detection are alarming, particularly for those vulnerable populations that continue to face significant barriers in accessing cancer care,” said Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), right. “This report highlights the urgency in helping all Americans get back on track with their cancer care so that we can avoid unnecessary deaths and complications from cancer. That’s exactly why expanding cancer screening access and awareness is a key priority of the Biden-Harris administration’s Cancer Moonshot.”
This study is the largest to date using population-based data from central cancer registries to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer incidence (new diagnoses of cancer) in the United States. The report appeared September 27, 2023, in Cancer.
The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer is a collaborative effort among NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the American Cancer Society; and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries to provide information about cancer occurrence and trends in the United States. Part 1 of the latest report, which focused on national cancer statistics, was released in October 2022.
Part 2 of the latest report focuses on annual-report-to-the-nation-part-2-new-cancer-diagnoses-fell-abruptly-early-in-the-covid-19-pandemicduring the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors suggest that these changes were due in part to interruptions in medical care. In particular, early 2020 saw a decline in cancer screenings. In addition, diagnoses made as a result of early symptoms or in the course of routine medical visits may have been delayed when people held off on seeing their doctors.
The authors analyzed cancer incidence data for 2015 to 2020 using data from select population-based cancer registries that participate in CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries or NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program.
The authors compared the number of newly diagnosed cases of cancer in 2020 with what was expected based on previous years. They looked at female breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, which are often diagnosed through screening tests or other forms of early detection that may have been disrupted by the pandemic; thyroid and prostate cancers, which are often diagnosed incidentally; and pancreatic cancer, which is usually diagnosed when the patient presents with symptoms. The authors also compared the volume of electronic pathology reports sent to central cancer registries in 2020 with the volume sent in 2019.
From March to May 2020, new cases of all six cancer types fell sharply. By July 2020, however, diagnoses of all cancer types except prostate cancer had returned to pre-pandemic levels, with little difference between observed and expected numbers during the second half of the year.
Over the same period in early 2020, the volume of electronic pathology reports also declined steeply before returning to pre-pandemic levels. Because these reports are transmitted automatically to cancer registries, the findings suggest that the decline in new cancer diagnoses was not due to delays in reporting caused by pandemic disruptions but rather to missed screenings and delays in other cancer-related procedures.
The authors also looked at declines in new cancer cases by cancer stage at diagnosis, sex, age, and population group. For each cancer type in the study, new cases of early-stage cancers fell more sharply than new cases of advanced cancers. The declines were greatest for the cancers typically diagnosed through screening (female breast, lung, and colorectal cancer). For example, 7,147 cases of early-stage colorectal cancer were expected to be diagnosed in 2020, but only 5,983 cases were diagnosed — meaning that potentially more than 16% of early-stage colorectal cancer cases weren’t caught.
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