Advanced cancers returned to prepandemic levels, according to a
reassuring report
[April 22, 2025]
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
Many Americans were forced to postpone cancer screenings —
colonoscopies, mammograms and lung scans — for several months in 2020 as
COVID-19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals.
But that delay in screening isn't making a huge impact on cancer
statistics, at least none that can be seen yet by experts who track the
data.
Cancer death rates continue to decline, and there weren't huge shifts in
late diagnoses, according to a new report published Monday in the
journal Cancer. It's the broadest-yet analysis of the pandemic’s effect
on U.S. cancer data.
In 2020, as the pandemic began, a greater share of U.S. cancers were
caught at later stages, when they're harder to treat. But in 2021, these
worrisome diagnoses returned to prepandemic levels for most types of
cancer.
“It is very reassuring,” said lead author Recinda Sherman of the North
American Association of Central Cancer Registries. “So far, we haven’t
seen an excess of late-stage diagnoses," which makes it unlikely that
there will be higher cancer death rates tied to the pandemic.
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A radiologist uses a magnifying glass to check mammograms for breast
cancer in Los Angeles, May 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes,
File)
 Similarly, the number of new cancer
cases dropped in 2020, but then returned to prepandemic levels by
2021. The size of the 2020 decline in new cancers diagnosed was
similar across states, despite variations in COVID-19 policy
restrictions. The researchers note that human behavior and local
hospital policies played more of a role than state policy
restrictions.
Late-stage diagnoses of cervical cancer and prostate cancer did
increase in 2021, but the shifts weren't large. The data analysis
goes only through 2021, so it’s not the final word.
“We didn't see any notable shifts,” Sherman said. “So it’s really
unlikely that people with aggressive disease were not diagnosed
during that time period.”
The report was produced by the North American Association of Central
Cancer Registries, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society.
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