Restrictions imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, including nationwide stay-at-home orders, could have resulted in a surge of cancer deaths during the first year of the pandemic, a study has found.
The study, published in the American Society of Clinical Oncology Journal on April 11, found a spike in the number of deaths with cancer as a contributing cause in 2020.
“The stay-at-home orders and the discontinuation of non-emergency treatment to limit hospital capacity and reduce transmission at the beginning of the pandemic may have resulted in delayed cancer screenings, diagnoses, and treatments, and possibly contributed to increased mortality,” said Jingxuan Zhao, senior associate scientist, health services research at the American Cancer Society and lead researcher on the study, according to an April 11 news release….