Impact of COVID-19 on cancer incidence, stage at diagnosis, mortality and 1-year survival in Ireland
This latest report shows no evidence to date of lasting impact on early cancer survival or mortality due to early diagnostic delays in 2020.
Key findings:
- No consistent rise in late-stage cancers was observed following the pandemic.
- Survival rates for all cancer sites in 2020–2021 remained in line with previous years.
- Cancer diagnoses did drop sharply (27%) in early 2020 as Covid-19 disrupted health services e.g., GP visits, hospital appointments, screening services.
- The system reconfigured quickly during the pandemic and recovered quickly after; by 2022 the number of diagnosed cases had returned to expected levels.
While Covid-19 severely disrupted cancer detection during 2020, Ireland’s cancer outcomes remained stable overall and there is no clear evidence to date of lasting harm to early survival or mortality. This is the key finding from this latest report, ‘Impact of COVID-19 on cancer incidence, stage at diagnosis, mortality and 1-year survival in Ireland,’ which shows that cancer services were protected despite the pandemic.
In spring 2020, the number of new cancer diagnoses dropped by 27% compared to previous years, the result of reductions in GP visits and the pause in screening programmes. Most of the reduction was in the four most common sites, breast, colorectal, prostate, and lung. By 2021 and 2022, the number of diagnosed cases had largely returned to expected levels with no sustained shift toward more advanced disease. Cancer deaths during 2020–2022 increased slightly, but this was in line with expected demographic trends, not pandemic-specific effects.
Ongoing monitoring will be essential to understand any delayed impacts, but early signs are positive. While longer-term effects cannot be entirely ruled out, the report says, current evidence suggests that cancer patients were safeguarded despite the unprecedented pressure of the global pandemic.
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