Cancer continued to be underdiagnosed after the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published Sept. 6 in JAMA Network Open.
Researchers from the University of Kentucky in Lexington analyzed data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results 22 registry database to compare the number of observed versus expected cancer diagnoses between January 2020 and December 2021.
The cancer incidence rate for all sites was 9.4% lower than expected in 2020 and 2.7% lower than expected in 2021, showing a slight improvement though still failing to meet expectations. The overall cancer incidence rate for both years was 6% lower than expected, equating to 149,577 potentially missed diagnoses.
Breast cancer diagnoses showed the greatest improvement in 2021, exceeding the expected rate by 2.5%. Lung cancer and cervical cancer diagnoses continued to fall behind expectations at 9.1% and 4.5%, respectively.