A study carried out by the organization Americas Health Foundation concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic delayed access to care or treatment for breast cancer in 67% of patients from health organizations located in 11 countries in Latin America, including Brazil.
The situation causes the prognosis to occur late, reducing the chances of cure and forcing the use of more expensive and complicated treatments.
THE Sheet contacted the Ministry of Health to comment on the situation in Brazil, but received no response until the report was published.
The survey is signed by doctors from the countries that made up the study: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
From Brazil, Fernando Maluf, associate medical director of the Centro Oncológico da Beneficência Portuguesa, collaborated with the study. “The impact of the pandemic of reducing screening tests increased this effect for cases of very advanced diseases”, he summarizes.
The study collected data from 102 healthcare organizations. In addition to them, 266 professionals working with oncology also participated by answering questionnaires and participating in interviews with the researchers.
The result was that, among health institutions, 67% reported that most patients mentioned delays in receiving treatment or medical care. Another 15% reported that, since the beginning of the pandemic, they had not accessed any treatment or medical care related to this type of cancer.
In the case of doctors, they indicated that about 93% of patients already had an advanced stage of the disease when the prognosis was made.
For Gilberto Amorim, oncologist and member of the SBOC (Brazilian Society of Clinical Oncology), the conclusions of the survey ratify similar conclusions of other studies already carried out. An example is the Cancer Radar, a survey carried out by Oncoguia that observed a 50% drop in mammograms when comparing the years 2019 with 2020.
Amorim, who did not sign the new study, explains that one reason for the difficulty in accessing the exams is because there was a period when consultations and elective exams (without urgency) were cancelled.
With the cooling of the pandemic, exams may even have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, the number of people who did not perform them during the most critical period of the spread of Sars-CoV-2 means that there is an accumulation of patients in need of the tests.
The result is pressure on the SUS (Unified Health System). “The problem is that we owe millions of exams over these two years of pandemic”, summarizes Amorim.
The impact of delays
Delay in diagnosis is pointed out as one of the factors that worsen the chances of curing different cancers, including breast cancer. This is because the patient undergoes the exam to detect the tumor when it is already at an advanced level.
In addition to having a lower chance of cure, late diagnosis makes it necessary to adopt more extreme types of treatment, something that is more expensive to do and can also leave more sequelae on the patient.
A patient still in the initial stage of cancer will hardly need chemotherapy, requiring the adoption of simpler surgeries, explains Amorim. Now, with a more advanced tumor, as in stage 3, it is necessary to employ measures that can lead to a greater number of sequelae, in addition to representing a more expensive expense.
“Treating a patient at stage 3 is associated with a greater chance of her being mutilated because of radical surgery. She is also more likely to need chemotherapy or radiation therapy. All of this is expensive,” explains Amorim.
Advanced cases of breast cancer still generate a second problem: increased demand for care in the SUS. As the system does not have a large scope to deal with advanced tumors, the expectation is that delays can also occur in access to treatment. This further increases the risk of complications and hampers the chance of a cure.
“If there were lines before for diagnosis and beginning of treatment, they are certainly bigger today”, says Maluf.
I have over 3 years of experience working in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have been an author at News Bulletin 247 for the past 2 years. I mostly cover technology news and have a keen interest in keeping up with the latest trends in the industry. I am a highly motivated individual who is always looking to improve my skills and knowledge.
