Cancer, “catastrophic screening data, mortality due to Covid will increase”

“As far as the oncological side is concerned,” the decline in screening due to Covid “cannot fail to lead to an increase in cancer mortality in the coming months”. This was stated by Francesco Cognetti, director of medical oncology at IRCCS Regina Elena in Rome, speaking at the Salone della Giustizia, at the conference on ‘The point on vaccination and the resumption of cardiovascular and oncological treatments’. “We still don’t have data for 2021, we only have data from the National Screening Observatory for 2020 and they are truly catastrophic,” said the oncologist. Not only. In the pandemic “there has certainly been an important delay for many surgeries – noted Cognetti -. Only a part of the interventions were carried out in emergency or extreme urgency. But most of them are part of elective surgery and these naturally have suffered delays with an increase in the proportion of tumors diagnosed late “. And it should be remembered, added the expert, that “the earlier and more incisive the intervention, the greater the chances of reducing this damage and having less impact on mortality. We – underlined the specialist – had achieved survival levels and results. at 5 years and also of healing among the highest in Europe, unfortunately we record this setback of which we are not even able to assess the extent “.