Trimarco Valentina, Izzo Raffaele, Pacella Daniela, Manzi Maria V, Varzideh Fahimeh, Lembo Maria, Gallo Paola, Piccinocchi Roberto, Morisco Carmine, Rozza Francesco, Piccinocchi Gaetano, Mercogliano Michelangelo, Jankauskas Stanislovas S, Esposito Giovanni, Palladino Raffaele, Santulli Gaetano, Trimarco Bruno
Department of Neuroscience, Reproductive Sciences, and Dentistry, Federico II University, Naples, Italy.
Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Federico II University, Naples, Italy.
BMC Med. 2025 Jul 1;23(1):399. doi: 10.1186/s12916-025-04237-1.
Recent studies based on hospital and outpatient clinic databases have reported a decline in cancer diagnoses during the COVID-19 pandemic, an observation that has been mainly attributed to halted screenings.
We investigated the impact of COVID-19 on cancer incidence in the Campania Region (Italy) among adults followed by their primary care physicians over a 6-year period (2017-2022). Using a single-cohort design, we employed interrupted time series (ITS) analysis to compare cancer incidence rates during the 3 years preceding the pandemic (2017-2019) with those during the three pandemic years (2020-2022).
We analyzed data from 212,656 individuals and found that the incidence of new cancer diagnoses rose from 14.3 to 23.1 per 1000 person-years when comparing the pre-pandemic to the COVID-19 period. ITS analysis revealed a stable trend in cancer diagnoses before the pandemic, followed by a marked increase of ~8 new cases per month beginning in January 2020, with a peak observed in August 2021. Notably, diagnoses of brain and skin cancers increased by 300% in 2022 compared to 2017.
Taken together, these findings highlight a concerning increase in cancer diagnoses in the Campania Region during the COVID-19 pandemic, contrasting with earlier reports that pointed to a decline in cases, mostly attributed to interrupted screening services. Several indirect factors might contribute to this trend, including heightened psychosocial stress and shifts in lifestyle behaviors, as well as profound disruptions in access to and continuity of healthcare delivery.
基于医院和门诊数据库的近期研究报告称，在新冠疫情期间癌症诊断数量有所下降，这一现象主要归因于筛查工作的停止。
我们调查了新冠疫情对意大利坎帕尼亚地区成年人癌症发病率的影响，这些成年人在6年期间（2017 - 2022年）由其初级保健医生进行随访。采用单队列设计，我们运用中断时间序列（ITS）分析方法，将疫情前3年（2017 - 2019年）的癌症发病率与疫情期间3年（2020 - 2022年）的发病率进行比较。
我们分析了212,656人的数据，发现将疫情前与新冠疫情期间相比较时，新癌症诊断的发病率从每1000人年14.3例上升至23.1例。ITS分析显示，疫情前癌症诊断呈稳定趋势，随后从2020年1月开始每月新增病例显著增加约8例，在2021年8月达到峰值。值得注意的是，与2017年相比，2022年脑癌和皮肤癌的诊断病例增加了300%。
综上所述，这些发现凸显了在新冠疫情期间坎帕尼亚地区癌症诊断令人担忧的增加情况，这与早期报告中指出的病例下降情况形成对比，早期报告中的病例下降主要归因于筛查服务中断。几个间接因素可能导致了这一趋势，包括心理社会压力增加、生活方式行为的改变，以及医疗服务获取和连续性的严重中断。
