70% Patients Missed Their Cancer Surgery Post-COVID Outbreak: Know Why Receiving Treatment On Time Is Important

Have you been missing out on scheduled Cancer treatment sessions lately? Read this article to understand how that is not a very good idea for you.

As the world is in the grip of the deadly COVID-19 virus for more than a year now, many patients during this lockdown missed their scheduled health checkups. In a recent report, researchers revealed that one in seven cancer patients around the world has missed out on potentially life-saving operations during Covid-19 lockdowns. Published in The Lancet Oncology, the study which was led by experts at the UK's University of Birmingham analysed data from the 15 most common solid cancer types in 20,000 patients across 466 hospitals in 61 countries.

Type of Cancer Included In The Study

According to the study, the researchers collected data from adult patients suffering from cancer types including colorectal, oesophageal, gastric, head and neck, thoracic, liver, pancreatic, prostate, bladder, renal, gynecological, breast, soft-tissue sarcoma, bony sarcoma, and intracranial malignancies.

In the study, the researchers found that planned cancer surgeries were affected by lockdowns regardless of the local Covid-19 rates at that time, with patients in lower-income countries at the highest risk of missing their surgery.

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While the study only followed patients that underwent a delay for a short period of time, evidence from other research suggests that these patients may be at higher risk of recurrence. "To help mitigate against this, surgeons and cancer doctors should consider closer follow-up for patients that were subject to delays before surgery," Aneel Bhangu, from the University of Birmingham, said.

Know Why Receiving Treatment On Time Is Important

Are you suffering from Cancer? What happens if you miss a dose of chemotherapy or radiation treatment? Cancer treatment mainly involves the use of radiation to kill the cancer cells, as many as possible. Therefore when you miss any of these treatment sessions, these cancer cells get an opportunity to continue to grow. Which sometimes can get out of control.

According to the experts, the most common form of cancer treatment is Chemotherapy, therefore, when one misses any of the sessions, they are prone to suffer from the side effects of the chemotherapy. Some of these are: