Analysis: 100 million Europeans missed cancer screening tests during the pandemic and as many as one million of us may have an undiagnosed cancer
By Aedín Culhane, University of Limerick and Mark Lawler, Queen's University Belfast
"She has breast cancer and its Stage 4". My face dropped. Stage 4 means the cancer is advanced and is spreading to other organs. It’s also associated with a much lower chance of survival. "The doctors say if they had caught it earlier, she might survive, but during Covid there wasn’t a chance to." He trailed off… I recognized these conversations. It was my second one today.
While doctors and nurses fought to contain deaths due to Covid-19, regular screening and care in other diseases including cancer, the number one cause of death prior to the pandemic, was compromised. The pandemic had a disastrous impact on cancer patients and those at risk of developing cancer. Many didn’t attend screening for fear of contracting Covid-19. In addition to no shows, many surgeries, biopsies and screening were postponed in response to lockdowns and the much needed response to Covid-19.
As people now begin to return, screening services and cancer care are at risk of being overwhelmed with demand. It is a race against time to identify those missed cancer diagnoses. Caught early, most cancers are treatable.
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From RTÉ One's Nine News, the Irish Cancer Society says Government must ensure treatment is now available for those whose cancer went undiagnosed during the pandemic
Ireland has achieved significant improvements in cancer survival in the last 20 years, but we don’t want two decades of good work to be undone by the events of the last two years. Getting back to the previous normal will not be enough and we need to clear diagnostic and treatment backlogs. Otherwise, the pandemic will inevitably lead to a future cancer epidemic, with devastating impact for the citizens of Ireland.
The Europe-wide numbers are startling: we estimate that 100 million people missed cancer screening tests, and as many as one million Europeans may be walking around with an undiagnosed cancer. In the UK, we found that seven out of every ten UK citizens with suspicion of cancer weren’t being evaluated by cancer diagnostic services, while four out of ten UK cancer patients were either missing chemotherapy appointments or not receiving chemotherapy at the right time. The Irish data, while incomplete, also highlights the significant impact of the pandemic.
In the UK, our findings helped persuade health leaders there to restore cancer services. When presented to WHO Europe and the European Cancer Organisation (Europe’s largest multi-professional cancer organization), the data proved so compelling that the European Cancer Organisation requested we establish a Special Network on the Impact of Covid-19 on Cancer.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, how Covid-19 has affected other hospital procedures like cancer treatment
We rapidly convened experts across Europe and developed a 7-Point Plan to mitigate the impact of Covid on cancer patients and services. These extremely worrying figures prompted us to develop and launch a Time To Act campaign in 12 countries across Europe. The bottom line of this campaign was 'don’t let Covid-19 stop you from tackling cancer'.
Catching cancer is time sensitive and we need data to understand the extent of the problem. All of us got an insight into the importance of managing health through data during the pandemic, and how time is a critical factor.
As a society, we have all become much more familiar with data and statistics over the last few years, be it the daily numbers of people infected, percentage of the population vaccinated or sadly, numbers of deaths. In a way, we have all become armchair data experts. But data is not just relevant to Covid itself and data has started to show the impact the pandemic has had on life-threatening diseases such as cancer.
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From RTÉ One News in June 2021, warning over backlog in cancer screening and treatment services
Recognising the importance and urgency of data intelligence in cancer, researchers at the University of Limerick and Queen’s University Belfast have established an All-Island eHealth Hub for Cancer. Like Covid, cancer knows no borders, so working together across the island of Ireland is the best way for us to address this challenge. Cross-border collaboration through the All Ireland Cancer Consortium, one of the lesser known benefits of the Good Friday agreement, has already led to over 35,000 people on the island being enrolled in cancer clinical trials, saving thousands of lives.
Our philosophy in the All-Island eHealth Hub for Cancer is clear: let’s turn data into intelligence and create data tools, to track cancer in real-time so we can act faster and save lives. Make no mistake - data really can save lives. Through this programme, our experts in data science and digital health on the island of Ireland will work with the international cancer community to deliver data-empowered solutions to address the global challenge of cancer. 21st century science is all about teamwork so we need to compete, not against each other, but against our common enemy to ensure cancer does not become the forgotten C in the fight against Covid.
For Irish citizens and patients, the messages is clear: don’t be afraid. Cancer services are safe. People shouldn’t hesitate to visit their doctor if they have potential cancer symptoms such as a lump on their breast, blood in their urine or faeces, difficulty swallowing or unexplained weight loss. The time to act is now.
The All-Island eHealth Hub for Cancer is funded under the Shared Island North South Research Fund
Prof Aedín Culhane is Professor of Cancer Genomics and director of the recently launched Limerick Digital Cancer Research Centre at the University of Limerick. Prof Mark Lawler is Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor of Digital Health and Chair in Translational Cancer Genomics at Queen's University Belfast.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
