SEER database analysis of survival of patients diagnosed with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruption on cancer diagnosis in the US have been widely observed, but their impact on short-term survival has not been assessed. A population-based cohort study using the SEER-21 database evaluated 1-year cause-specific survival rates of patients diagnosed with cancer during 2015 to 2021. In this study of more than 1 million US individuals, patients diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and 2021, compared with 2015 to 2019, had significant reductions in survival, both for diagnosis at early and late stage, resulting in an estimated 17,390 more deaths (13.1%) within 1 year of diagnosis than expected. The authors conclude that individuals diagnosed with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced worse survival during the first year after their diagnosis than those diagnosed before the pandemic.