Cancer diagnosis at one of Western Cape’s main state laboratories plunged by more than a third during the first three months of SA’s coronavirus lockdown, according to a study published online in the SA Medical Journal.
The paper is among a growing body of research highlighting the scale of deferred care triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, as health-care services were disrupted and patients stayed away from facilities for fear of infection. Early diagnosis is critical for many cancers because it improves the odds of survival.
Researchers examined records from one of the Western Cape’s two anatomical pathology laboratories, which serve public sector patients throughout the province. They found new cancer diagnosis for six common cancers fell 36%, from 532 new cases to 339 cases, between April 1 2020 and June 30 2020 compared with the corresponding period the year before.
SA’s first coronavirus case was identified on March 5 2020, and the country went into lockdown on March 27 2020. For the first five weeks of the lockdown, people were confined to their homes and permitted to leave only to purchase food and medicines, perform essential services or seek medical care.
The researchers compared records for breast, prostate, cervix, large bowel, oesophageal and stomach cancer.
They found the biggest declines were for prostate cancer (-58.2%), oesophageal (-44.1%) and breast cancer (32.9%), followed by gastric (-32.6%) and colorectal cancer (-29.2%). Cervical cancer diagnosis fell by 7%.
“We expected a fall but were quite shocked by the actual decline in cases,” said the study’s lead author, Abraham van Wyk, an anatomical pathologist at the National Health Laboratory Service and University of Stellenbosch. “We knew our workload had fallen but wanted to put numbers to it,” he said.
Based on discussions with colleagues in other provinces, Van Wyk said he expected a similar pattern in other parts of SA.
A separate study in the SA Medical Journal, also published in May, identified a backlog of more than 1,000 elective surgical procedures built up at just six public hospitals in the Western Cape during the first four months of the lockdown.
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