“Secondary injury”: Doctor worried about patients diagnosed with advanced cancer due to COVID-19 delay

Toronto-Back in March, Bill Gardner’s doctor was hoping to test for sore throat, swallowing problems, and slightly altered voices, but booked for delays due to a coronavirus pandemic. I couldn’t.

Gardner was checked out until Gardner vomits blood four months later. He had stage 2 esophageal cancer.

The University of Ottawa epidemiology professor is one of thousands of Canadians and believes researchers present to doctors with more advanced cancers because they have to wait longer for testing.

“To some extent, the cancer will be larger than previously discovered, so I will need more intense radiation,” Gardner told CTV News.

“I am to some extent collateral damage. It’s not always someone’s fault, but it’s a good way to explain my situation.”

Gardner Documents His Cancer Experience During the COVID-19 Pandemic Personal blog We also hope that it will lead to better preparation for cancer patients in the future.

“It’s time to look at policies that reduce access to primary care, access to diagnosis and screening (and) make outpatient care more difficult,” he said.

In Canada, an average of 617 people are diagnosed with some types of cancer each day. According to the Canadian Cancer Society..

One of the big keys to cancer survival is early diagnosis of the condition, but the full extent of the pandemic’s effects may not yet be known due to the widespread cancellations scheduled for spring. ..

“Some people, who may have received early treatment that could save lives, may not save their lives,” Gardner said. “Metastases from these cancers that could have been prevented by previous treatments occur, and more severe-and frankly toxic-therapies need to be used.”

Dr. Antoine Escander, an oncology surgeon at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto and a part-time scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluation and Science (ICES), has a COVID 19 pandemic.

“As a scientist, and as a surgeon, I can see how it affects the data,” he said.

“Delayed diagnosis… Patients have become associated with larger tumors. There are more emergency and additional surgeries, as opposed to elective or scheduled surgery. Is at the absolutely necessary stage.”

Eskander is working on three studies with ICES to investigate how delays in cancer-related appointments affect Canadians. His work follows a similar study already done worldwide, and it is estimated that thousands of people die from cancer due to the delay associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

last week, Journal of the American Medical Association research Weekly diagnoses of breast, colorectal, lung, pancreatic, gastric, and esophageal cancer reported a 46.4 percent reduction during the pandemic.

Dr. Harvey W. Kauffman, Medical Director of Quest Diagnostics, said: “The period from March to April is down 46%, which means that these people haven’t been able to take screens or tests during the early months of the pandemic.”

The study also noted similar declines in the Netherlands and the UK.

“Cancer doesn’t stop while residents are socially separated,” the researchers wrote in a study. “A delay in diagnosis will likely lead to more advanced presentation and worse clinical outcome.”

Another study Meanwhile, the United States suggests seeing 33,890 excess deaths next year due to delayed diagnosis of cancer.

In England, Similar research It is estimated that more than 3,621 people may die of breast, colorectal, esophageal, and lung cancer within the next five years due to late diagnosis.

“There is an urgent need for policy interventions, especially managing backlogs within regular diagnostic services to mitigate the expected impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer patients,” the report said. States.

Similar data is not yet available in Canada, but Eskander believes the situation in Canada will become clearer in the coming months.

“What I want is to have fairly accurate data for at least March and April within the next month or two months. This is something we can take seriously to say.” Please, this is what happened,” he said.

To address the Canadian situation, Eskander is calling for urgent planning and additional funding to address the consequences of these late diagnoses. He wants doctors to be able to screen more for cancer through telehealth and not close all hospitals to surgery and diagnosis for cancer in the event of a second wave.

“COVID doesn’t go anywhere right away and it doesn’t cause cancer,” he said. “We need to find ways to work within a pandemic to provide the best possible care to our patients.”

Eskander said doctors need to step up their efforts to catch up with the late schedule of cancer.

“There’s no doubt in my mind. You’ll find more advanced cancers and delayed diagnosis, but ultimately a backlog of cases that need treatment,” he said. “We already see evidence that it is very clear to all oncologists.”

Gardner agreed that it was time to adjust policies to better treat cancer patients.

“Canada has done a great job on pandemics, overall. Now it’s time to assess how well we’re doing and see if we need to readjust our policy. “He said.

“Now is our effort to catch up with something like cancer treatment, to immunize our children, and the various things I feel-to some extent-go to the roadside like us. I’m trying to deal with COVID.”