Deaths in people with cancer could rise by at least 20%

The COVID-19 emergency in England could result in at least 20% more deaths over the next 12 months in people who have been newly diagnosed with cancer, according to a UCL study with DATA-CAN: The Health Data Research Hub for Cancer in the UK. The new analysis, published today as a preprint, is the first to focus on the impact of the emergency on mortality rates in people with cancer and uses data from the health records of over 3.5 million patients in England. The study estimates that pre-COVID-19, about 31,354 newly diagnosed cancer patients would die within a year in England. As a result of the emergency, there could be at least 6,270 additional deaths in newly diagnosed cancer patients alone. This number could rise to an estimated 17,915 additional deaths if all people currently living with cancer are considered. The researchers analysed recent weekly data from major cancer centres in the UK and found a 76% decrease in urgent referrals from GPs for people with suspected cancers and a 60% decrease in chemotherapy appointments for cancer patients compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. The paper also models publicly available US data and shows an additional 33,890 deaths in the US in newly diagnosed cancer patients over the next year.