Cancer survival rates will fall if coronavirus crisis causes delays to diagnosis and treatment in coming months with tumours becoming ‘inoperable’, warns leading expert
- Professor Charles Swanton, Cancer Research UK chief clinician, issued warning
- Suggestion that surgeries, screenings and diagnoses are being delayed
- In some cancers there is a 90% survival rate if the disease is caught early enough
Cancer survival rates will fall if the coronavirus crisis continues to put pressure on the NHS and cause delays in diagnosis and treatment, according to a leading cancer expert.
Professor Charles Swanton, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said that the delays may mean that some tumours will grow and become inoperable.
So far 4,313 people in the UK have died from coronavirus and a whopping 41,903 are infected with the disease.
Cancer survival rates will fall if the coronavirus crisis continues to put pressure on the NHS and cause delays in diagnosis and treatment, according to a leading cancer expert. Pictured are passengers walking through arrivals in Heathrow after returning from Florida today
There is some suggestion that surgeries, screenings and diagnoses for early-stage cancers are being delayed by some NHS trusts in England.
Mr Swanton told The Times: ‘If the coronavirus outbreak continues to press resources for months — and it could easily press resources for three to four months — that’s a worrying delay to the critical interventions required to diagnose and intervene in early stage cancers.
‘That risks lowering the rate of survival and that is what we are so worried about at Cancer Research UK.’
Early diagnosis and treatment are the best ways to beat cancer, in the case of breast, bowel and ovarian cancers – there is a 90 per cent chance patients will survive if the disease is found early.
Professor Charles Swanton (pictured), Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said that the delays may mean that some tumours will grow and become inoperable
There is some suggestion that surgeries, screenings and diagnoses for early-stage cancers are being delayed by some NHS trusts in England
Mr Swanton added: ‘There is a risk that trusts may have to make a choice between ventilatory support for an acutely unwell patient with Covid-19 at the expense of an elective admission for primary surgery for a potentially curable tumour requiring a short post-operative stay in intensive care.’
Survival rates in some cancers have doubled in the past 40 years as a result of routine screening. However, UK survival rates fall behind other other countries.
For bowel cancer, the UK survival rate is 58.9 per cent, compared with 70.1 per cent in Australia.
