“If you are postponing your breast cancer screenings, prostate cancer screenings, colon cancer screenings or any other cancer screening because of Covid, you are putting your long-term health at risk. Really, you don’t want to do that. That is a big mistake that could make treatment more difficult and cost you your life” says Dr. Mark Pomper, board-certified radiation oncologist and medical director of the CyberKnife Center of Miami.
Dr. Pomper is echoing the concerns of many physicians who have seen the impact of delayed treatment due to the COVID Pandemic.
According to a study published last November in JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics, a delay in screenings and cancer care because of Covid could lead to an uptick in cancer morbidity and mortality.
“The current impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer care in the United States has resulted in decreases and delays in identifying new cancers and delivery of treatment. These problems, if unmitigated, will increase cancer morbidity and mortality for years to come,” the authors of the study concluded.
According to another study in the British Medical Journal: “Even a four-week delay of cancer treatment is associated with increased mortality across surgical, systemic treatment, and radiotherapy indications for seven cancers.”
Those cancers include bladder, breast, colon, rectum, lung, cervix and head and neck cancers.
The Journal of The American Medical Association also reported grim findings from a study: “The delay in diagnosis will likely lead to presentation at more advanced stages and poorer clinical outcomes. One study suggests a potential increase of 33,890 excessive cancer deaths in the United States.”
Miami Cancer Doctor
“I am seeing it in patients. They didn’t go to the doctor for months due to Covid. I have a patient who I saw the other day who fell and was bleeding. She wouldn’t even go to the emergency room because of COVID. If she had, they very likely would have discovered she had a brain tumor, which is what caused her to fall,” Dr. Pomper says on the CyberKnife Center of Miami’s YouTube channel.
Dr. Pomper says eventually the patient went to urgent care and was finally diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“She lost a good two to three months on this,” he says.
The impact of delaying cancer treatment and screenings is very real.
“For sure there could be patients who go from a localized stage to an advanced stage where it’s spread and once it’s spread your chance for cure is tremendously compromised,” says Dr. Pomper.
That’s why it’s important to get your regular health screenings, and if you feel something is wrong, go see your doctor right away.
Cancer Treatment in Florida
If you are diagnosed with cancer and need radiation or want a second opinion, talk to the experts at CyberKnife Miami.
CyberKnife Miami is a free-standing outpatient cancer treatment center.
We use state-of-the-art image guided radiosurgery to treat cancer and other medical issues requiring radiation.
We treat spine, brain, breast, lung, kidney, pancreas, liver, prostate and head and neck tumors. We also treat lymphoma and other conditions in the body where radiation treatment is necessary.
CyberKnife offers painless radiation treatments, which can be an alternative to surgery. And because of CyberKnife’s precision, we can treat difficult cases, which may otherwise not be treatable or deemed inoperable.
Miami Cancer Center
We have treated thousands of patients for cancerous and non-cancerous tumors as well as nerve disorders.
Our doctors and staff are experts in the field and are among the most experienced in the world. Their compassion and personalized treatment can be the difference you need when it comes to treating your cancer.
If you are interested in learning more about CyberKnife Miami call us at
305-279-2900 or go to our website www.cyberknifemiami.com.