Impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer registration and cancer care: a European survey
Open accessAbstract
Background: The coronavirus disease COVID-19 pandemic posed a number of challenges to the oncology community, particularly the diagnosis and care of cancer patients while ensuring safety from the virus for both patients and professionals: minimization of visits to the hospital, cancellation of the screening programmes and the difficulties in the management and operation of cancer registries (CRs) while working remotely. This article describes the effects in the medium term of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer registration in Europe, focusing on changes in cancer detection and treatment, possible reduction of CR resources and difficulties in the access to data sources. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed in June 2020 to the directors of 108 CRs from 34 countries affiliated to the European Network of Cancer Registries, providing a 37% response rate. Results: The results of the survey showed that cancer-screening programmes were mostly stopped or slowed down in the majority of regions covered by the respondent CRs. Cancer diagnostics and treatments were severely disrupted. The cancer registration process was also disrupted, due to changes in the work modalities for the personnel, as well as to the difficulties in accessing sources and/or receiving the notifications. In some CRs, staff was allocated to different activities related to controlling the pandemic. Several CRs reported that they were investigating the impact of COVID-19 on cancer care via dedicated studies. Conclusions: A careful analysis will be necessary for proper interpretation of temporal and geographical variations of the 2020 cancer burden indicators.
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Many cancer registries worldwide reported disruptions to their operations during the first wave of the pandemic, and monthly cancer registrations were clearly reduced for common cancers as a result in many countries.
“Many cancer registries worldwide reported disruptions to their operations during the first wave of the pandemic, 182,183 and monthly cancer registrations were clearly reduced for common cancers as a result in many countries.”
From Global cancer statistics 2022: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. (2024) · cites this paper as [183]
The Results (Disruptions in cancer registration processes) report disruptions to notifications and data collection at some responding registries during the first wave. But the survey covered 40 registries in 22 European countries, not registries worldwide. The citation follows the first clause, so the later claim about monthly registrations is not assessed here. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Neamţiu, L., Martos, C., Giusti, F., Negrão Carvalho, R., Randi, G., Dimitrova, N., Flego, M., Dyba, T., Bettio, M., Gavin, A., Visser, O., the ENCR Steering Committee, Gavin, A., Visser, O., Sánchez, M. J., Eden, M., Stracci, F., Šekerija, M., Trojanowski, M., Bray, F., van Eycken, E., Miranda, A., & Storm, H.
- Affiliations
- European Commission (BE)
- European Commission, Joint Re search Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy
- Joint Research Centre (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Neamţiu, Luciana
- ORCID
- Venue
- European Journal of Public Health
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2021-12-22
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 311-315
- ISSN
- 1101-1262 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-360X
- PMC
- PMC8975538
- OpenAlex
- W4200283516
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 1.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- European Journal of Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (Queen's University Belfast) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Joint Research Centre
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › COVID-19 and healthcare impacts
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Global Cancer Incidence and Screening
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, cancer registration, cancer registry, cancer diagnosis, cancer therapy, cancer care disruption, remote work
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Humans, Neoplasms, Surveys and Questionnaires, Pandemics
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