Ozva AdminNearly half of cancers are diagnosed after they are likely to have spread, a new report has revealed.
The number of people who were diagnosed early at stage one or two dropped to 52 per cent in 2020, figures from NHS Digital show.
The drop will see thousands more patients die from the disease over the next two years, one of the UK’s leading oncologists has warned.
Only 19 percent of some cancers like esophageal cancer were diagnosed at an early stage compared to 91 percent of testicular cancers, according to official data.
The number of people who were diagnosed early at stage one or two dropped to 52 per cent in 2020, figures from NHS Digital show. The drop will see thousands more patients die from the disease over the next two years, one of the UK’s leading oncologists has warned. Only 19 percent of some cancers, such as esophageal cancer, were diagnosed at an early stage compared to 91 percent for testicular cancers, according to official data.
It comes after it was revealed that the number of cancer patients seen within two months of an urgent referral from their GP had plummeted.
Professor Karol Sikora (pictured), a consultant oncologist, said the health service was seeing patients showing up with late-stage cancers, but there would be a natural delay before death rates reflected this.
Those who lived in areas of higher deprivation were also more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage.
Experts say the UK is in the midst of a cancer crisis due to existing capacity issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic ‘stay at home’ advice.
Professor Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist, said the health service was seeing patients showing up with late-stage cancers, but there would be a natural delay before death rates reflected this.
He said: ‘We’re still short on patients from 2020 and 2021 and now they’re showing up, but there’s no capacity to see them.
‘What we don’t know, and we will have to wait three or four years, is that the mortality rate increases because with cancer it takes longer to see deaths.
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“I think it will start to go up for cancer in 2023 and 2024.
“We know that people present with stage three and stage four cancers and we know that as they present later, the survival numbers will be poorer.”
Shortages in crucial departments like radiology and endoscopy mean overburdened hospitals struggle to provide vitally needed cancer screening services, leading to delays in diagnosis.
Cancer performance data shows that only six in 10 cancer patients started treatment in October within two months of an urgent referral from their GP, the second lowest since records began in 2009.
Yesterday’s report showed the lottery faced by patients waiting for a diagnosis with 83 percent of breast cancer patients diagnosed before the cancer has progressed, compared to just a quarter of those with pancreatic cancer. .
Prostate cancer, for which the Daily Mail has campaigned for 20 years, is detected early in only half of patients, according to figures.
Earlier this week, leading cancer specialists warned that these delays in diagnosis and treatment have already led to a 17 per cent increase in UK cancer deaths.
Other statistics show that excess cancer deaths since March 2020 are already 8,815, with 3,327 in the last six months, and this trend is likely to continue.
Writing in the journal Lancet Oncology, they described it as a “defining moment”, adding that officials need to recognize the true scale of the problem and treat it with the same urgency as Covid.
NHS data from November showed that in the last 12 months, 69,000 patients in the UK waited more than the recommended 62 days from remission for suspected cancer to start of treatment, double the number in 2017-18.
Meanwhile, 13 per cent of cancer patients in England waited more than 104 days to start treatment in September, double the maximum recommended waiting time.
An NHS spokesperson said: “These figures provide further evidence of the immediate impact of Covid-19 in 2020, when we saw a decline in the number of people presenting for cancer checks, but early diagnosis rates recovered to previous levels. to the pandemic in July 2021 and, thanks to NHS campaigns to encourage people to step up, the NHS is diagnosing more early stage cancers than ever before the pandemic.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We know that fewer people were going to see their GPs with possible symptoms of cancer during the pandemic, but the NHS continued to prioritize cancer treatment and we are working steadily to improve the outcomes for people with the disease. .
‘The latest figures show that the NHS is diagnosing more and more patients earlier with over 100,000 patients diagnosed with stage one or two cancer last year.
‘In October, 92% of people started treatment within a month of referral and we continue to do everything we can to fight cancer and speed diagnosis, including offering millions of additional scans at our community diagnostic centers, the specific lung health monitoring program and increasing access to GPs.’
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