New surveys show a stark dip in cancer screening numbers across the board since the COVID-19 outbreak.
One report found cervical and breast cancer screenings dropped 94 percent in March, while colorectal cancer screenings fell 86 percent compared to the 2017 to 2019 averages. Medical experts stress that — given they follow all the needed precautions — hospitals are perfectly safe to visit at this time. Don’t put off getting needed, lifesaving preventive cancer screenings.
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With COVID-19 shelter-in-place guidelines putting a halt on daily life over the past few months, one unexpected result has been a sharp drop in necessary cancer screenings nationwide.
Experts say this is a worrying trend. Even though the COVID-19 outbreak is a serious public health crisis, that doesn’t mean cancer should take a back seat as a major health concern.A sharp decrease in cancer screenings.
In May, Epic Health Research Network, which collects and reports on electronic health record data, released a study that showed a sharp decline in preventive cancer screenings across the board since the COVID-19 crisis first hit in January.
The research looked at data from 39 health systems, encompassing 190 hospitals throughout 23 states.
For a representative sample, the report assessed aggregated data from 2.7 million people who had gone in for at least one preventive screening for cervical, breast, and colorectal cancer from early 2017 to early 2020.
The results? They found that cervical and breast cancer screenings dropped 94 percent in March 2020, while colorectal cancer screenings fell 86 percent compared to the 2017 to 2019 averages.
Other research has also been showing COVID-19’s impact on cancer screening rates.
IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science reports that mammograms, colonoscopies, and Pap smears have declined by 87, 90, and 83 percent, respectively, since February — about a month before COVID-19 was declared an emergency in the United States.
PSA testing needed to detect prostate cancer was down 60 percent. CT scans for lung cancer were down by 39 percent.
Dr. Dale R. Shepard, PhD, FACP, medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, told Healthline that he and his colleagues have definitely seen a decrease in cancer screenings.
