resections – removal of tissue – and biopsies to diagnose cancer dropped in ontario by about 20 per cent between march and august, with prostate biopsies seeing the steepest decline at 60 per cent, according to figures ontario health provided to the post.
despite some catch-up later in the year, there were still 15 per cent fewer resections and five per cent fewer biopsies overall in 2020 than before the pandemic. but the testing numbers have increased above the 2019 level this year, the agency adds.
ontario ordered routine cancer screening paused in march 2020, and the impact was striking.
by the end of the year, the system had done about 360,000 fewer pap smears for cervical cancer, conducted 220,000 fewer mammograms and processed 300,000 fewer colon-cancer tests.
british columbia’s provincial health services authority provided less extensive data, but said the province saw a 20-per-cent decrease in new cancer diagnoses in the first part of the pandemic.
diagnoses are now climbing back up to pre-covid-19 levels, the agency says. the number of screening mammograms b.c. did this february was about the same as in february 2019.
quebec’s health ministry issued a report in january detailing the pandemic’s impact on cancer care. based on the reduced number of biopsy and other pathology reports, it estimated 4,119 new cancers went undiagnosed just between march and august of 2020 that would have been found earlier.