Delays in the diagnosis and treatment of a dangerous form of skin cancer due to Covid lockdowns have led to more than 100,000 years of life lost across Europe and cost the economy more than £6 billion, research has found.
While lockdowns have saved lives from Covid, the consequences of the restrictions are evident in many areas of healthcare, from long waiting lists for surgery to delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Now researchers studying the impact of lockdowns on people with melanoma say policymakers should do more to encourage prevention of the disease, and put plans in place to avoid disruption to screening services in the event of future pandemics.
“Lockdowns are absolutely necessary and useful to directly save lives from Covid, but they have indirectly contributed to the loss of life. And all of these things need to be taken into account as we build our pandemic preparedness strategies for the future,” said Dr Kaustubh Adhikari from University College London and the Open University, who co-authored the study.
Writing in JAMA Network Open magazineAn international team of researchers describes how they used data from around 900 patients in Switzerland and Hungary, collected from before 2020 to December 2021, to estimate the proportion of people diagnosed with melanoma at different stages before and during the pandemic.
The results show that a higher proportion of people were diagnosed with more advanced melanoma during the pandemic in both countries. In total, the team estimates that 17% of patients have progressed to a more serious cancer stage due to lockdown-related delays in diagnosis or treatment.
The team used this estimate, along with data on treatment costs for different stages, the incidence of melanoma, the duration of lockdowns and the number of years of healthy life lost for each stage of melanoma – as well as other measures – from a large number of countries in Europe. to assess the impact of lockdowns on melanoma patients.
The results suggested that the Covid lockdowns – defined by the team as ‘the abolition of routine medical examinations and severely limited access to follow-up examinations for at least four weeks’ – were taking their toll on the health of people with melanoma and on the economy.
Overall, the researchers suggest that such measures have contributed to the loss of 111,464 years of life in 31 countries in Europe, including Germany, France and Britain, at a total economic cost of £6.1 billion – largely due to productivity losses as a result of death. or disability due to melanoma.
While the team says the work has limitations – including extrapolating results from two countries to others, as well as the diversity in European healthcare systems and the lack of attention to mental health impacts – the team emphasizes importance of maintaining screening and prevention during health crises.
Dr. Adil Sheraz, consultant dermatologist and spokesperson for the British Skin Foundation, who was not involved in the study, said he was not surprised by the results.
“Unfortunately, the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic meant limited access to virtually all outpatient specialties. There were of course also problems with seeing GPs face-to-face. Diagnosing melanoma without seeing the lesions in person can be extremely difficult,” he said.
“The findings in this multicenter study are not surprising, and the loss in productivity and health outcomes reinforces the importance of melanoma screening.”