Abstract
Cancer is a leading cause of death in the United States and across the globe. Cancer screening is an effective preventive measure that can reduce cancer incidence and mortality. While cancer screening is integral to cancer control and prevention, due to the COVID-19 outbreak many screenings have either been canceled or postponed, leaving a vast number of patients without access to recommended health care services. This disruption to cancer screening services may have a significant impact on patients, health care practitioners, and health systems. In this paper, we aim to offer a comprehensive view of the impact of COVID-19 on cancer screening. We present the challenges COVID-19 has exerted on patients, health care practitioners, and health systems as well as potential opportunities that could help address these challenges.
Highlights
It is estimated that 606,520 Americans will die from cancer in 2020 [1], which is 4 times the number of recent projected deaths due to COVID-19 [2]
We aim to present the challenges COVID-19 has exerted on patients, health care practitioners, and health systems as well as potential opportunities that could help address these challenges
The systemic disruption and tragedy that COVID-19 has brought to patients, practitioners, and health care systems is an opportunity for innovative solutions, especially in cancer prevention and screening [141-143]
Summary
It is estimated that 606,520 Americans will die from cancer in 2020 [1], which is 4 times the number of recent projected deaths due to COVID-19 [2]. This loss of profit may have an impact on patients and health care practitioners, considering that loss of profits often translate into reduced investments in cancer research [6] While these numbers present a dismal reality, opportunities and solutions that could address the challenges caused by COVID-19 on cancer screening are available. On a higher-technological scale, using a deep learning technique, researchers found that AI can help identify faces of patients with cancer from those without [126] This promising finding, not currently in use, suggests that AI-based telemedicine tools have the future potential to assist patients and health care practitioners with cancer screening and improve screening accuracy. Promising findings show that social media campaigns on lung cancer screening using Google and Facebook to reach at-risk populations yielded click-through rates above the industry standard [110] These insights suggest that health care professionals can consider using social media http://cancer.jmir.org/2020/2/e21697/.
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