PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Cancer screenings rebounded in 2020 after COVID but racial disparities remain

2021-07-07
(Press-News.org) BOSTON - The numbers of cancer screening tests rebounded sharply in the last quarter of 2020, following a dramatic decline in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, at one large hospital system in the Northeastern United States. These findings were released in a study published in Cancer Cell. The research also found an increase in racial and socioeconomic disparities among users of some screening tests during the pandemic.

Study co-senior author Toni K. Choueiri, MD, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said following a dramatic decline during the first pandemic peak, there was a "substantial increase in screening procedures during the more recent periods with numbers exceeding those seen before the pandemic. However, racial disparities appear to differ between screening procedures, and are more marked in patients undergoing mammography."

"Early screening and diagnosis provide patients with the best chance for cancer cure--a widened racial gap in cancer screening due to COVID-19 will exacerbate existing racial disparities in cancer mortality," adds Quoc-Dien Trinh, MD, co-director of the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Prostate Cancer Center, co-leader of the Mass General Brigham United Against Racism prostate cancer outreach clinic, and co-senior author on the study.

During September to December 2020, cancer screening rates for breast, prostate cervical, and lung cancer recovered and exceeded numbers seen before the pandemic, the study authors said. However, the recovery was not seen in colonoscopy screening to detect colorectal cancer.

"Colonoscopy did not get back to normal levels," said Chris Labaki, MD, of Dana-Farber, co-first author of the study. One reason may be that it is the most invasive of the tests, requiring hospital and anesthesia services, the authors suggested. The investigators also noted that some patients who would have undergone colonoscopies to screen for colorectal cancer may have opted for alternative, home-based methods such as tests for occult blood in stool.

In addition to the pandemic's temporary stifling of routine cancer screening, the researchers also found an increase in racial and socioeconomic disparities with some screening tests. Significant shifts in the racial distribution of patients undergoing mammography were revealed in the decreased numbers of Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic patients having mammographies during the period September to December 2020 compared to the three months preceding the pandemic. This contrasted with an increase in mammography tests in the whole group of patients during the last quarter of 2020, according to the study. "These findings are concerning and suggest the pandemic may accentuate racial disparities related to cancer screening," the authors noted.

The racial proportions of patients undergoing screening during the pandemic remained stable for PSA, colonoscopy, Pap test, and CT scanning for lung cancer, compared to the pre-pandemic periods.

The study was based on records of the Mass General Brigham system, a large healthcare system in the Northeast -- a region that had experienced a sharp decline in screening during the early months of the pandemic. A decrease in numbers of screening tests during March to June 2020 and June to September 2020 ranged from minus 65% to minus 82% and minus 4% to minus 44%, respectively, depending on screening type.

The reduction in tests initially in 2020 and the resurgence in the last quarter of 2020 was accompanied by changes in diagnoses of cancer: only 1,985 positive tests were reported during the early pandemic (March-June 2020) compared to 3,476 positive tests in the September-December period.

Statisticians calculated that 1,187 diagnoses were "missed" from March to June 2020 because of reduced use of screening. Of those, 323 were "recovered" from September to December 2020, although the study did not note whether the cancers were found at later stages. For colonoscopy, no diagnoses were "recovered" and 38 positive diagnoses were "missed" across the three pandemic periods analyzed.

"The increase in screening tests that was identified from September to December 2020 helped to recover some of the "missed" cancer diagnoses from earlier time periods," Labaki added. "However, more efforts are still needed to ensure the implementation of large screening campaigns as a significant proportion of cancers remains undiagnosed." The delays in diagnosis are expected to cause adverse oncologic outcomes, the researchers say.

"We don't want to miss out on cancer screenings," Choueiri emphasized. "We would want patients to come back to discuss with us and their primary care providers and to embark on screening following the national COVID-19 pandemic guidelines."

INFORMATION:

The co-first authors of the study with Labaki are Ziad Bakouny, MD, MSc, and Andrew Schmidt, MD, of Dana-Farber. Co-authors are Stuart Lipsitz, ScD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Timothy R. Rebbeck, PhD, of Dana-Farber and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

About Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center

Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) brings together specialists from two world-class medical centers. DF/BWCC has a singular focus on conquering cancer and improving the way that cancer care is delivered throughout the world. Through our 12 specialized disease treatment centers, experts from one of the world's leading cancer institutes and one of the world's leading hospitals work together as one team to offer the most advanced treatments with the compassion and care that makes all the difference.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Researchers detail the most ancient bat fossil ever discovered in Asia

Researchers detail the most ancient bat fossil ever discovered in Asia
2021-07-07
LAWRENCE -- A new paper appearing in Biology Letters describes the oldest-known fragmentary bat fossils from Asia, pushing back the evolutionary record for bats on that continent to the dawn of the Eocene and boosting the possibility that the bat family's "mysterious" origins someday might be traced to Asia. A team based at the University of Kansas and China performed the fieldwork in the Junggar Basin -- a very remote sedimentary basin in northwest China -- to discover two fossil teeth belonging to two separate specimens of the bat, dubbed Altaynycteris aurora. The new fossil specimens help scientists better understand ...

Next generation cytogenetics is on its way

2021-07-07
Dutch-French research shows that Optical Genome Mapping (OGM) detects abnormalities in chromosomes and DNA very quickly, effectively and accurately. Sometimes even better than all existing techniques together, as they describe in two proof-of-concept studies published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. This new technique could radically change the existing workflow within cytogenetic laboratories. Human hereditary material is stored in 46 chromosomes (23 pairs). Although those chromosomes are quite stable, changes in number or structure can still occur. A well-known example is Down syndrome, which is caused by an extra ...

Change in respiratory care strategies for preterm infants improves health outcomes

Change in respiratory care strategies for preterm infants improves health outcomes
2021-07-07
A decade's worth of data shows that neonatologists are shifting the type of respiratory support they utilize for preterm infants, a move that could lead to improved health outcomes. Using two large national datasets that included more than 1 million preterm infants, researchers in a new Vanderbilt-led study found that from 2008 to 2018 there was a greater than 10% decrease in the use of mechanical ventilation for this patient population. Concurrently, there was a similar increase in the use of non-invasive respiratory support, such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), for these infants. The ...

New computational technique, software identifies cell types within a tumor and its microenvironment

2021-07-07
(Boston)--The discovery of novel groups or categories within diseases, organisms and biological processes and their organization into hierarchical relationships are important and recurrent pursuits in biology and medicine, which may help elucidate group-specific vulnerabilities and ultimately novel therapeutic interventions. Now a new study introduces a novel computational methodology and an associated software tool called K2Taxonomer, which support the automated discovery and annotation of molecular classifications at multiple levels of resolution from high-throughput bulk and single cell 'omics' data. The study includes a case ...

The Obesity Society issues new position statement:

2021-07-07
SILVER SPRING, Md.--Vaccines such as Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are designed to prevent severe Coronavirus-19 Disease (COVID-19) due to acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and are highly efficacious. The efficacy is not different in people with and without obesity except for AstraZeneca which is not known, according to a new position statement from The Obesity Society (TOS), the leading scientific membership organization advancing the science-based understanding of the causes, consequences, prevention and treatment of obesity. Trials have demonstrated high efficacy in individuals ...

Gene therapy in early stages of Huntington's disease may slow down symptom progression

Gene therapy in early stages of Huntingtons disease may slow down symptom progression
2021-07-07
In a new study on mice, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report that using MRI scans to measure blood volume in the brain can serve as a noninvasive way to potentially track the progress of gene editing therapies for early-stage Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that attacks brain cells. The researchers say that by identifying and treating the mutation known to cause Huntington's disease with this type of gene therapy, before a patient starts showing symptoms, it may slow progression of the disease. The findings of the study were published May 27 in the journal Brain. "What's exciting about this study is the opportunity to identify a reliable biomarker that can ...

McMaster researchers identify how VITT happens

McMaster researchers identify how VITT happens
2021-07-07
Hamilton, ON (July 7, 2021) - A McMaster University team of researchers recently discovered how, exactly, the COVID-19 vaccines that use adenovirus vectors trigger a rare but sometimes fatal blood clotting reaction called vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia or VITT. The findings will put scientists on the path of finding a way to better diagnose and treat VITT, possibly prevent it and potentially make vaccines safer. The researchers' article was fast-tracked for publication today by the prestigious journal Nature in its accelerated article preview because of the importance of the research. "Our work also answers important ...

New generation anti-cancer drug shows promise for children with brain tumours

New generation anti-cancer drug shows promise for children with brain tumours
2021-07-07
A genetic map of an aggressive childhood brain tumour called medulloblastoma has helped researchers identify a new generation anti-cancer drug that can be repurposed as an effective treatment for the disease. This international collaboration, led by researchers from The University of Queensland's (UQ) Diamantina Institute and WEHI in Melbourne, could give parents hope in the fight against the most common and fatal brain cancer in children. UQ lead researcher Dr Laura Genovesi said the team had mapped the genetics of these aggressive brain tumours for five ...

Not only humans got talent, dogs got it too!

Not only humans got talent, dogs got it too!
2021-07-07
Some exceptionally gifted people have marked human history and culture. Leonardo, Mozart, and Einstein are some famous examples of this phenomenon. Is talent in a given field a uniquely human phenomenon? We do not know whether gifted bees or elephants exist, just to name a few species, but now there is evidence that talent in a specific field exists, in at least one non-human species: the dog. A new study, just published in Scientific Reports, found that, while the vast majority of dogs struggle to learn object labels (such as the names of their toys), when tested in strictly controlled conditions, a handful of gifted word learner ...

Cutting through noise for better solar cells

Cutting through noise for better solar cells
2021-07-07
As society moves towards a renewable energy future, it's crucial that solar panels convert light into electricity as efficiently as possible. Some state-of-the-art solar cells are close to the theoretical maximum of efficiency--and physicists from the University of Utah and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have figured out a way to make them even better. In a new study, physicists used a technique known as cross-correlation noise spectroscopy to measure miniscule fluctuations in electrical current flowing between materials inside silicon solar cells. The researchers identified crucial electrical ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Social media likes and comments linked to young men’s obsession with perfect pecs and a six-pack

$2.1M aids researchers in building chemical sensors to safeguard troops

Climate change parching the American West even without rainfall deficits

Power grids supplied largely by renewable sources experience lower intensity blackouts

Scientists calculate predictions for meson measurements

Mayo Clinic researchers recommend alternatives to hysterectomy for uterine fibroids, according to study

Using a fan and wetting the skin reduces risk of deadly cardiac strain in hot and humid weather

Very early medication abortion is effective and safe

Sleepiness during the day may be tied to pre-dementia syndrome

Research Spotlight: Higher brain care score found to improve brain health regardless of genetic risk

Variation in the measurement of sexual orientations is associated with sexual orientation-related mental health disparities

Study shows how high blood sugar increases risk of thrombosis

Cachexia decoded: Why diagnosis matters in cancer survival

Transportation institute awarded nearly $1 million in trucking education grants

Sewage surveillance proves powerful in combating antimicrobial resistance

Natural environment is declining: are companies doing their part to save it?

New study sheds light on the role of sound and music in gendered toy marketing

Pathogens which cling to microplastics may survive wastewater treatment

Effects of preterm birth extend into adulthood, study finds

Salmon frequently mislabeled in Seattle grocery stores and sushi restaurants

15,800-year-old engraved plaquettes from modern-day Germany depict fishing techniques, including the use of nets, not previously known in the Upper Paleolithic

How plants evolved multiple ways to override genetic instructions

Nasal swab tests predict COVID-19 disease severity, Emory study finds

'Shallow' sports and 'deep' social hierarchies: Not all pecking orders are created equal

New PFAs testing method created at UMass Amherst

Asteroid grains shed light on the outer solar system’s origins

Grant supports finding brain-inspired ways to develop low-energy computing

People engaging in self-harm find support on Reddit. But is that community helping them?

The egg or the chicken? An ancient unicellular says egg!

Coping and resilience aids parents of disabled children, study says

[Press-News.org] Cancer screenings rebounded in 2020 after COVID but racial disparities remain