For most screenable cancers, a pandemic-related surge of late-stage diagnoses in 2020 quickly returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, with the exception of cervical cancer.
According to the National Cancer Institute’s “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer,” new cancer diagnoses were 8% lower than expected in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additional years of data are “needed to correctly interpret this decline and assess whether cases went undiagnosed or underreported,” the report authors wrote. “The full impact of the decline … on stage at diagnosis and survival will become clearer with additional years of incidence data.”
Here is the percentage of cancer cases diagnosed at a late stage each year between 2017 and 2021:
| All sites | Cervix | Colon and rectum | Female breast | Lung and bronchus | Prostate | |
| 2017 | 48.9% | 52.0% | 63.2% | 32.4% | 71.7% | 22.8% |
| 2018 | 48.4% | 53.3% | 64.2% | 32.6% | 70.2% | 22.6% |
| 2019 | 48.4% | 53.4% | 65.0% | 31.8% | 70.5% | 23.1% |
| 2020 | 49.8% | 57.4% | 67.2% | 32.6% | 71.0% | 24.3% |
| 2021 | 48.3% | 57.7% | 65.0% | 31.3% | 69.0% | 24.4% |
Richard Barakat, MD, physician-in-chief and executive director at New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health Cancer Institute, previously spoke to Becker’s about his concern over the increase in cervical cancer incidence.
“Cervical cancer is a disease that could be eradicated if screening and prevention guidelines were followed,” Dr. Barakat said. “How, with pap smears, HPV testing and vaccines, is cervical cancer increasing? That just should not be happening.”
