Since the COVID-19 virus creates a contagious type of disease that causes dangerous health problems in the short term, the health sector and people around the world are focused on the virus rather than many other diseases. However, diseases such as cancer, which continue to be in danger, have been neglected due to the fear of COVID-19. Especially people who were worried about going to the hospital could not learn about their diseases such as a possible cancer and could not be diagnosed.
Çukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine Faculty Member and President of the Association of Family Physicians (TAHUD) Prof. Dr. Esra Saatçi, in her presentation titled Pandemic and Chronic Diseases at the 20th National Family Medicine Congress, stated that cancer screenings decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore, there may be a serious increase in cancer cases in the future.
Death rates increased 12 times
Stating that they expect an increase in cancer cases due to delayed screenings and treatments, Saatçi said, “Because we neglected or postponed our cancer screenings. Therefore, unfortunately, a frightening increase awaits us. During the epidemic, the number of patients diagnosed with prostate, breast, colon and lung cancer decreased by 42 percent compared to the average of the past 5 years. There has been a dramatic decrease in cancer diagnoses. In this process, the inability of the patients to reach the hospital sufficiently led to the diagnosis of late stages. When the pandemic peaked, 2 million 324 thousand 69 cancer surgery operations were postponed in the world. This situation will have a medium and long-term impact on the health of patients, and it will also have an impact on the health economy.”
Compared to healthy individuals who contracted COVID-19 in the first 4 months of the epidemic, patients with diseases such as heart failure and diabetes had a 6-fold increase in hospitalizations and a 12-fold increase in death rates. It was determined that physical activities decreased by 40 percent during the pandemic period and that there was an increase in chronic diseases for this reason.
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