Data collected by the Healthcare Cost Institute showed that screenings for cancers like breast and colon cancer decreased by as much as 80 percent during the pandemic.
The pandemic-related delay increased the risk of cancer being found at a later stage, said Dr. Sheinfeld Gorin, a research professor with the University of Michigan’s Department of Family Medicine.
“The treatment for that cancer is going to be more invasive,” she said. “There may be surgeries where they didn’t need to be before, there may be chemotherapy or you might have had a milder protocol before.”
Self-screening for cancer became the main avenue for cancer screenings last year, Gorin said. Even now, self-screening remains more common today than it was pre-pandemic even with healthcare facilities reopening.
“Perhaps people thought it was not so bad, or, more importantly, good to do those screenings at home,” she said
Gorin said the American Cancer Society has launched an initiative to increase cancer screenings by ten percent at most healthcare facilities.
Dr. Gorin will be conducting a virtual lecture here about the pandemic’s effect on cancer screenings at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20. More information can be found here.