In a study from the American Cancer Society, scientists found that the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of cancer-related deaths by 3.2% in the United States from 2019 to 2020.
Compared to 2019, the monthly cancer-related mortality rate was higher in April 2020, when the pandemic most challenged healthcare capacity.
Higher mortality rates were again observed each month from July to December 2020 compared to 2019.
In the study, researchers compared age-standardized cancer-related annual and monthly death rates in January-December 2020 (pandemic) versus January-December 2019 (pre-pandemic).
They showed the number of cancer-related deaths was 686,054 in 2020, up from 664,888 in 2019, with an annual increase of 3.2%.
The annual age-standardized cancer-related mortality rate continuously decreased from 173.7 in 2015 to 162.1 in 2019, while it increased to 164.1 in 2020.
The cancer-related monthly mortality rate was higher in April 2020 when COVID-19 most challenged healthcare facilities but subsequently declined in May and June 2020.
Higher mortality rates were again observed each month from July to December 2020 compared to 2019.
In large metropolitan areas, the largest increase in cancer-related mortality was observed in April 2020, while in non-metropolitan areas, the largest increases occurred from July to December 2020, coinciding with the time-spatial pattern of COVID-19 incidence in the country.
Compared to 2019, cancer-related mortality rates were lower from March to December 2020 in medical facilities, hospice facilities, and nursing homes or long-term care settings but higher in decedent’s homes.
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The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and was conducted by Jingxuan Zhao et al.
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