More Aussies are likely to die from bowel cancer as a result of COVID-era disruptions

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-04-02 05:00

Australia; NSW

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COVID-related disruptions to bowel cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment in Australia are likely to lead to an additional 234 cancer cases and 1,186 deaths in Australia over 2020–2030, according to Aussie-led research. The researchers modelled the impact of disruptions on colorectal cancer cases and deaths in both Canada and Australia. In Australia, COVID disruptions were predicted to lead to a 2.4% increase in mortality compared with a scenario with no screening disruption or diagnostic/treatment delays. They also found that increasing diagnostic and treatment capacities by 5% to address the backlog could help prevent 350 Aussie deaths.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Cancer Council NSW, The University of Sydney, The Daffodil Centre

Funder: This work was supported by the Ontario Health Data Platform (OHDP), a Province of Ontario initiative to support Ontario’s ongoing response to COVID-19 and its related impacts. This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [operating grants VR5-172666, 179892] and a Sunnybrook Research Institute and Sunnybrook Foundation COVID-19 Response Grant. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study, nor the decision to prepare and submit the manuscript for publication. OncoSim is led and supported by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, with model development by Statistics Canada, and is made possible through funding from Health Canada. The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors ZS and JHEY, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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