Abstract

[...]several reports from the first COVID-19 wave in spring 2020 showed a significant decrease in new cancer diagnoses as well as cancer therapy and screenings [ 5, 6]. (A) according to age and gender; (B) according to cancer location; (C) relative changes per month; (D) relative and absolute change of incidence of benign, pre-malignant and malignant lesions according to organ screening program.Abbreviations: IH – Insurance holders; MN – malignant neoplasm; CNS – central nervous system When analyzing entity-specific changes, a clear difference in the decrease of diagnoses which ranged from a non-significant decrease of 5.77% (95%CI: -0.03[0.03 to -0.09] per 10,000 IH; not significant) for brain and eye tumors (C69-C72) to a decrease of more than 30% for breast cancer (-1.35[95%CI: -1.21 to -1.5] per 10,000 IH; P < 0.001) and for melanoma (-1.06[95%CI: -0.94 to -1.19] per 10,000 IH; P < 0.001) was found (Figure 1B; Supplementary Table S4). [...]due to our study's retrospective nature, no direct causal inference between the COVID-19 pandemic and the decrease in newly diagnosed cancerous and precancerous lesions could be made. [...]besides the direct impact of COVID 19 on health, there seems to be major collateral damage associated with the under-diagnosis of other medical conditions.

Details

Title
Cancer diagnosis is one quarter lower than the expected cancer incidence in the first year of COVID‐19 pandemic in Germany: A retrospective register‐based cohort study
Author
Diers, Johannes 1 ; Acar, Laura 2 ; Wagner, Johanna C 1 ; Baum, Philip 1 ; Hankir, Mohammed 1 ; Flemming, Sven 1 ; Kastner, Carolin 3 ; Christoph‐Thomas Germer 4 ; Helmut L'hoest2 2 ; Marschall, Ursula 2 ; Lock, Johan Friso 1 ; Wiegering, Armin 5 

 Department of General, Visceral, Transplantation, Vascular and Pediatric Surgery, University Hospital, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany 
 Department Medizin und Versorgungsforschung, Institut fuer Gesundheitssystemforschung, Barmer, Wuppertal, Germany 
 Department of General, Visceral, Transplantation, Vascular and Pediatric Surgery, University Hospital, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany 
 Department of General, Visceral, Transplantation, Vascular and Pediatric Surgery, University Hospital, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; Comprehensive Cancer Centre Mainfranken, University of Wuerzburg Medical Centre, Wuerzburg, Germany 
 Department of General, Visceral, Transplantation, Vascular and Pediatric Surgery, University Hospital, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; Comprehensive Cancer Centre Mainfranken, University of Wuerzburg Medical Centre, Wuerzburg, Germany 
Pages
673-676
Section
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Publication year
2022
Publication date
Jul 2022
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
e-ISSN
2523-3548
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2684916000
Copyright
© 2022. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.