ArticleBMJ open2021
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related control measures on cancer diagnosis in Catalonia: a time-series analysis of primary care electronic health records covering about five million people.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Identifying essential COVID-19 indicators for primary healthcare through Delphi analysis in 31 European countries: Eurodata eDelphi study.European journal of public health · 2025Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on New Lung Cancer Diagnosis in Mureș County, Romania: A 5-Year Retrospective, Comprehensive Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- The impact of extended invitation intervals on stage distribution of screen-detected and interval cancer within the Dutch colorectal cancer screening program.International journal of cancer · 2025Article
- Age-Specific Differences in Association Between Personality and Changes in Outing Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan: Cross-Sectional Web-Based Questionnaire Survey.Online journal of public health informatics · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on bone and soft tissue sarcoma patients' consultation and diagnosis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Sexually transmitted infections, the epidemic that persists after the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of the primary care electronic health records covering about 5 million people in Catalonia.BMC primary care · 2024Observational
- Primary care indicators for disease burden, monitoring and surveillance of COVID-19 in 31 European countries: Eurodata Study.European journal of public health · 2024Article
- Inequalities in regional excess mortality and life expectancy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cervical cancer screening participation, abnormal cytology prevalence and screening interval in Catalonia.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- The impact of the UK COVID-19 lockdown on the screening, diagnostics and incidence of breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer in the UK: a population-based cohort study.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer within a Population-Based Organized Screening Program.Cancers · 2023Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on reported cancer diagnoses in Bavaria, Germany.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2023Article
- Article
- Changes in all-cause and cause-specific excess mortality before and after the Omicron outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong.Journal of global health · 2023Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Cancer Diagnosis in Madrid (Spain) Based on the RTMAD Tumor Registry (2019-2021).Cancers · 2023Article
- Cancer diagnosis in primary care after second pandemic year in Catalonia: a time-series analysis of primary care electronic health records covering about 5 million people.Family practice · 2023Article
- Women's experiences along the ovarian cancer diagnostic pathway in Catalonia: A qualitative study.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2023Article
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on older cancer patients: Proposed solution by the International Geriatric Radiotherapy Group.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Article
- Mortality in Catalonia during the summer of 2022 and its relation with high temperatures and COVID-19 cases.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Effects of COVID-19 confinement on the incidence and mortality of major osteoporotic fractures: an observational study in Catalonia, Spain.Archives of osteoporosis · 2022Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveCancer care has been disrupted by the response of health systems to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdowns. The objective of our study is to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on the incidence of cancer diagnoses in primary care.
designTime-series study of malignant neoplasms and diagnostic procedures, using data from the primary care electronic health records from January 2014 to September 2020.
settingPrimary care, Catalonia, Spain.
participantsPeople older than 14 years and assigned in one of the primary care practices of the Catalan Institute of Health with a new diagnosis of malignant neoplasm.
main outcome measuresWe obtained the monthly expected incidence of malignant neoplasms using a temporary regression, where the response variable was the incidence of cancer from 2014 to 2018 and the adjustment variables were the trend and seasonality of the time series. Excess or lack of malignant neoplasms was defined as the number of observed minus expected cases, globally and stratified by sex, age, type of cancer and socioeconomic status.
resultsBetween March and September 2020 we observed 8766 (95% CI 4135 to 13 397) fewer malignant neoplasm diagnoses, representing a reduction of 34% (95% CI 19.5% to 44.1%) compared with the expected. This underdiagnosis was greater in individuals aged older than 64 years, men and in some types of cancers (skin, colorectal, prostate). Although the reduction was predominantly focused during the lockdown, expected figures have not yet been reached (40.5% reduction during the lockdown and 24.3% reduction after that).
conclusionsReduction in cancer incidence has been observed during and after the lockdown. Urgent policy interventions are necessary to mitigate the indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related control measures on other diseases and some strategies must be designed in order to reduce the underdiagnosis of cancer.
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