“During these two months, the number of cancers diagnosed was cut in half,” said AFP professor Axel Kahn, president of the League against cancer, citing feedback from the hospital.
Delayed care, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even if the authorities have hammered out the importance, for cancer patients, of continuing their treatment during the epidemic, the consequences on management have been very real and the emergency will be necessary after the deconfinement, warn specialists .
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“My last treatment was postponed for six weeks. With a phone call to tell me that it was less dangerous than being exposed to the Covid”, worries Roger (first name changed at his request), 62, still in immunotherapy following lung cancer. Adèle, 40, was in full treatment for breast cancer diagnosed in September when the new coronavirus spread in France. This Parisian then confined herself to the family home in the provinces. “At one point I asked myself, where am I going to be followed? Am I going to be in the wild?”, she relates. The transfer of her treatment finally went well and she is now waiting to start radiation therapy.
But between processing delays and those in the detection of new cases, the system as a whole risks being destabilized. “During these two months, the number of cancers diagnosed was cut in half”, explains Professor Axel Kahn, president of the League against cancer, citing the feedback from the hospital field.
The coronavirus frightened the patients who were dissuaded from getting tested, from consulting.to AFP
The figures are simple and worrying: with nearly 400,000 new cases of cancer per year in France, some 30,000 patients will not have been diagnosed. However, the proliferation of lung scanners to confirm Covid-19 infections has made it possible to detect certain tumors.
A situation “very disturbing” for Axel Kahn, who points to two consequences: taking care of patients too late and the risk of saturation during normal resumption of activities.
If to the postponements of control exams, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, scheduled surgical operations, you add all the late screenings, there is a risk of a very big traffic jam.to AFP
Another consequence is the interruption of treatment. Besides the deprogramming by the hospitals, some patients preferred “stay very cautiously confined to protect yourself”, notes Eric Solary, president of the scientific council of the ARC foundation for cancer research. “We must quickly resume treatment.”
A prepublication study by British researchers, coordinated by Professor Clare Turnbull of the Cancer Research Institute in London, examines these different questions. According to their models, survival at six months could be reduced by 30% by “even a modest delay” surgical management for certain aggressive stage 2 cancers (bladder, lung, stomach, for example). Survival at three months would be reduced by 17%.
Another concern is the possible interactions between the new coronavirus and cancer. The CRA has launched an appeal to fund research projects on these issues, and 70 are already in the running. It is “measure the impact on care and see how to quickly help clinicians to adapt treatments, how to use drugs in this context that we know little about”, explains Eric Solary.
For all these specialists, it is urgent to get back on track and relaunch the fight against cancer. Axel Kahn nevertheless regrets a “donation collapse” since the start of the pandemic.
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