Rohatgi Atharva P, Tran Nathan, Palkowski Teresa, Liao Cheng-I, Darcy Kathleen, Tian Chunqiao, Kapp Daniel S, Chan John K
Internal Medicine, Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Boca Raton, USA.
Research, Palo Alto Research Center, San Francisco, USA.
Cureus. 2025 Aug 7;17(8):e89593. doi: 10.7759/cureus.89593. eCollection 2025 Aug.
Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on discrepancies between expected and actual breast cancer diagnosis. Methods Data on breast cancer incidence were obtained from the United States Cancer Statistics (USCS) program from 2001 to 2020. We compared actual breast cancer incidence rates in the year 2020 to estimated rates based on trends from 2001 to 2019. Results From 2001 to 2019, there were 4,005,763 identified cases of breast cancer in the United States. Prior to the pandemic, the incidence rate of breast cancer was 162.87 per 100,000 in females with an annual increase of 1.32% (p < 0.001). A comparison between projected and observed incidences in 2020 revealed a 21,450-case discrepancy, indicating 10.1% fewer diagnosed cases than expected. Patients over 70 years old exhibited the highest discrepancy of more than 13.27% compared to younger cohorts. Hispanic patients saw the largest discrepancy with 13.4% fewer diagnoses compared to only 10.5% in White patients. Intersectional analysis showed that older Hispanic patients aged 65-69 years old residing in the Northeast observed one of the highest discrepancies at nearly 25.9% fewer cases. Conclusions The reported breast cancer cases significantly declined during the pandemic. Older age, Hispanic race and ethnicity, and those residing in the Northeast region had the greatest number of missing cases.
目的 本研究旨在评估新冠疫情对乳腺癌预期诊断与实际诊断差异的影响。方法 乳腺癌发病率数据取自2001年至2020年美国癌症统计（USCS）项目。我们将2020年乳腺癌实际发病率与基于2001年至2019年趋势估算的发病率进行了比较。结果 2001年至2019年，美国共确诊4,005,763例乳腺癌病例。疫情前，女性乳腺癌发病率为每10万人162.87例，年增长率为1.32%（p < 0.001）。2020年预计发病率与实际发病率对比显示，差异为21,450例，即确诊病例比预期少10.1%。70岁以上患者差异最大，比年轻人群高出13.27%以上。西班牙裔患者差异最大，诊断病例比预期少13.4%，而白人患者仅少10.5%。交叉分析表明，居住在东北部的65至69岁西班牙裔老年患者差异最大，病例数比预期少近25.9%。结论 疫情期间报告的乳腺癌病例显著下降。年龄较大、西班牙裔种族以及居住在东北部地区的人群漏诊病例最多。
