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More Canadians could face late-stage cancer tied to diagnosis delays during COVID pandemic – CBC News

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It all started with a stomach bug.

That’s what Cheryl-Anne Labrador-Summers thought, anyway. It was October 2020, not long after she’d moved to the tranquil lakeside Ontario community of Georgina, and instead of relaxing with her family like she’d planned, the mother of three was struggling to figure out why she kept experiencing strange, unexplained stomach cramps.

Labrador-Summers tried to visit her family physician, but the office was shuttered because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So she searched for another clinic — only to be offered a phone appointment rather than an in-person assessment. She wound up being told that her grumbling digestive system was likely caused by a mild gastrointestinal illness.

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By January, the 58-year-old had a distended stomach, looking — in her own words — “about nine months pregnant.” Again, she reached out to a physician, went for some tests, then headed to the nearest emergency department.

After finally seeing a doctor face to face for the first time in months, she learned the real cause of her discomfort: an intestinal blockage caused by cancer.

“It ended up being a nine-centimetre tumour, and it had completely blocked off my lower bowel,” she said.

An emergency surgery left Labrador-Summers with 55 staples along her torso and a months-long recovery before she could begin oral chemotherapy. Her question now is unanswerable but painful to consider: Could that ordeal have been prevented, or at least minimized, by an earlier diagnosis?

“Had I maybe been able to see the doctors earlier, I would not be in Stage 3,” she said. “I might have been a Stage 2.”

Photos show Labrador-Summers with a distended stomach before her emergency surgery, left, and the 55 staples along her torso following the procedure. (Supplied by Cheryl-Anne Labrador-Summers)

951,000 fewer cancer screenings in Ontario

More Canadians could experience late-stage cancer diagnoses in the years ahead, medical experts warn, forecasting a looming crisis tied to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We expect to see more advanced stages of presentation over the next couple of years, as well as impacts on cancer treatments,” said oncologist Dr. Timothy Hanna, a clinician scientist at the Cancer Research Institute at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

“We know that time is of the essence for people with cancer. And when people are waiting for a diagnosis or for treatment, this has been associated with increased risks of advanced stage and worse survival.”

One review of Ontario’s breast, lung, colon, and cervical cancer screening programs showed that in 2020 there were 41 per cent — or more than 951,000 — fewer screening tests conducted compared with the year before.

Screening volumes rebounded after May 2020, but were still 20 per cent lower compared to pre-pandemic levels.

WATCH | Late-stage cancer being diagnosed in Canadian ERs:

ERs faced with late-stage cancer diagnoses amid pandemic

4 days ago

Duration 2:11

Hospital emergency rooms are seeing a wave of patients being diagnosed with late-stage cancer after the COVID-19 pandemic forced many doctors’ offices to close or pivot to virtual appointments, leading to fewer cancer screenings.

That drop in screenings translates into fewer invasive cancer diagnoses, including roughly 1,400 to 1,500 fewer breast cancers, wrote Dr. Anna N. Wilkinson, an assistant professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, in a May commentary piece for the journal Canadian Family Physician.

“The impact of COVID-19 on cancer is far-reaching: screening backlogs, delayed workup of symptomatic patients and abnormal screening results, and delays in cancer treatment and research, all exacerbated by patient apprehension to be seen in person,” she wrote.

“It is clear that there is not only a lost cohort of screened patients but also a subset of missed cancer diagnoses due to delays in patient presentation and assessment,” leading to those cancers being diagnosed at a more advanced stage. 

Tough accessing care in a ‘timely way’

The slowdown in colonoscopies may already be leading to more serious cases of colorectal cancer in Ontario, for instance, suggests a paper published in the Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology.

“Patients who were treated after the COVID-19 pandemic began were significantly more likely to present emergently to hospital. This means that they were more likely to present with bowel perforation, or severe bowel obstruction, requiring immediate life-saving surgery,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Catherine Forse, in a call with CBC News.

“In addition, we found that patients were more likely to have large tumours.”

Dr. Lisa Salamon, an emergency room physician with the Scarborough Health Network, is pictured outside Birchmount Hospital, in Scarborough, Ont. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

In some cases — like Labrador-Summers’s situation — Canadians learned alarming news about their health in hospital emergency departments after struggling to receive in-patient care through other avenues.

Shuttered family physician offices, a shift to telemedicine, and some patients’ fears surrounding COVID-19 may all have played a role.

“It became harder for patients to access care and to access it in a timely way,” Hanna said.

“At the same time, there were real risks — and there are real risks for leaving home to go anywhere, particularly to go to an outpatient clinic or a hospital in order to get checked out.”

Dr. Lisa Salamon, an emergency physician with the Scarborough Health Network in Toronto, said she’s now diagnosing more patients with serious cancers, including several just in the last few months.

“So previously, it may have been localized or something small, but now we’re actually seeing metastatic cancer that we’re diagnosing,” she explained.

Lessons for future pandemics

Health policy expert Laura Greer is dealing with Stage four, metastatic breast cancer herself after waiting more than five months for a routine mammogram she was initially due for in the spring of 2021 — a precautionary measure given that her mother had breast cancer as well.

Unlike an early-stage diagnosis, Greer’s cancer is only treatable, not curable.

“It was an example of what happens when you don’t have the regular screening, or those wellness visits,” said the Toronto resident and mother of two. 

“I most likely would have had earlier-stage cancer if it had been sooner.”

Health policy expert Laura Greer is dealing with Stage 4, metastatic breast cancer after waiting more than five months for a routine mammogram she was due for in the spring of 2021. (Esteban Cuevas/CBC News)

Pausing access to care and screenings for other health conditions can have dire impacts on patients, according to Greer, offering lessons for how policy-makers tackle future pandemics.

“We need to make sure that we’ve got enough capacity in our health system to be able to flex, and that’s what we really didn’t have going into this,” she said.

For Labrador-Summers, it’s hard to forget the moment her life changed while she was alone in an emergency department, learning a terrifying diagnosis from a physician she’d just met. Her mind raced with questions about the future and concerns for her family.

Labrador-Summers’s husband and one of her sons kiss her on the dock near their lakeside home in Georgina, Ont. (Ousama Farag/CBC News)

“My older son had just told us they were expecting a child, and I just wanted to be there for them. And I didn’t know what next steps were. And we had lost my mom to cancer a few years back — to us, cancer was always terminal,” she recalled.

“So again, I’m alone, trying to process all of this.”

A screening following Labrador-Summers’ surgery and chemotherapy treatment wound up finding more cancer. 

“It’s now life-threatening,” she said.

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Measles case reported locally turns out to be negative: health unit

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NEWS RELEASE
SIMCOE MUSKOKA DISTRICT HEALTH UNIT
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On March 26, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) was notified by Public Health Ontario’s (PHO) laboratory that due to laboratory error, the case of measles that had been lab-confirmed positive on March 12, based on symptoms and a positive urine measles laboratory result by PHO’s laboratory, is in fact negative for the measles virus.

“With this new information of the negative lab result, we believe that that individual was not infected with measles and that there has not been any public exposure to measles resulting from this individual’s illness,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health. “We recognize that notifying the public of what we believed to be a positive measles case in our area created worry, anxiety and disruption for some, and we regret this.

“We do know that, despite best efforts, on rare occasions laboratory errors can occur. We are working closely with the PHO’s laboratory to do all that we can to ensure that such an incident does not occur again.”

Measles is a highly contagious viral infection that spreads very easily through airborne transmission. The measles virus can live in the air or on surfaces for up to two hours.

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Symptoms of measles begin seven to 21 days after exposure and include fever, runny nose, cough, drowsiness, and red eyes. Small white spots appear on the inside of the mouth and throat but are not always present. Three to seven days after symptoms begin, a red, blotchy rash appears on the face and then progresses down the body.

The risk of transmission to those vaccinated with two doses is low, and when it does occur tends to show a reduction in the severity of these symptoms.

“Although we are relieved for the individual involved, and for all Simcoe-Muskoka residents, that this case has now been confirmed as negative, we know that measles is still active in Ontario at this time and the potential remains for new cases to arise, especially given the increase in Ontarians travelling to areas in the world that have higher numbers of measles cases,” said Dr. Gardner. “This is why we continue to advise individuals to keep up to date with their routine immunizations, including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination.”

The risk of measles is low for people who have been fully immunized with two doses of measles vaccine or those born before 1970; however, many children have been delayed in receiving their routine childhood immunizations and people who have not had two doses of measles vaccine are at higher risk of contracting the disease.

People who do get sick usually recover without treatment, but measles can be more severe for infants, pregnant women, and those with compromised immune systems. Possible complications include middle-ear infections, pneumonia, diarrhea, or encephalitis (swelling of the brain) and occasionally death in the very young. Even individuals who are up to date with the measles vaccine should watch for symptoms of measles for 21 days after exposure.

For more information about measles, please visit smdhu.org or call Health Connection at 705-721-7520 or 1-877-721-7520, Monday to Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to speak with a public health professional.

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Kate Middleton Not Alone. Cancer On Rise For People Under 50, Say Experts

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Kate Middleton revealed on Friday that her cancer was discovered after she received abdominal surgery

London:

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When Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed she was being treated for cancer last week, part of the shock was that an otherwise healthy 42-year-old has a disease that mostly plagues older people.

However, researchers have been increasingly sounding the alarm that more and more people under 50 are getting cancer — and no one knows why.

Across the world, the rate of under-50s diagnosed with 29 common cancers surged by nearly 80 percent between 1990 and 2019, a large study in BMJ Oncology found last year.

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The researchers predicted the number of new cancer cases among younger adults will rise another 30 percent by the end of this decade, with wealthy countries particularly affected.

The increase in cases — and soaring global population — means that the number of deaths among under 50s from cancer has risen by nearly 28 percent over the last 30 years.

This occurred even as the odds of people of all ages surviving cancer have roughly doubled over the last half century.

Shivan Sivakumar, a cancer researcher at the UK’s University of Birmingham, called it an “epidemic” of young adult cancer.

Since Kate Middleton revealed on Friday that her cancer was discovered after she received abdominal surgery earlier this year, Sivakumar and other doctors have spoken out about the uptick in younger cancer patients they have been seeing at their clinics.

While breast cancer remains the most common for people under 50, the researchers expressed particular concern about the rise of gastrointestinal cancers — such as of the colon, pancreas, liver and oesophagus — in younger adults.

Colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer deaths in men under 50 in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. For women, it is number two — behind only breast cancer.

One high profile case of colorectal cancer was “Black Panther” actor Chadwick Boseman, who died at the age of 43 in 2020.

Why is this happening?

“We just don’t have the evidence yet” to say exactly what is causing this rise, Sivakumar told AFP, adding it was likely a combination of factors.

Helen Coleman, a cancer epidemiology professor at Queen’s University Belfast who has studied early onset cancer in Northern Ireland, told AFP there were two potential explanations.

One is that people in their 40s were exposed to factors known to cause cancer — such tobacco smoke, alcohol or being obese — at an earlier age than previous generations.

She pointed out that the “obesity epidemic” did not start until the 1980s.

Sivakumar felt that at least part of the puzzle could be explained by obesity.

However, there is “another wave” of under-50 patients who are neither obese nor genetically predisposed still getting cancer, he emphasised, adding that this could not be put down to “statistical chance”.

The other theory, Coleman said, is that “something different” has been going on with her generation.

Fingers have been pointed out a range of possible culprits — including chemicals, new drugs and microplastics — but none have been proven.

Some have suggested that so-called ultra-processed foods could be to blame. “But there’s very little data to back any of that up,” Coleman said.

Another theory is that the food we eat could be changing our gut microbiome.

While there is nothing conclusive yet, Coleman said her own research suggested that cancer causes changes to the microbiome, not the other way around.

Anti-vaxx conspiracy theorists have even tried to blame Covid-19 vaccines.

This is easily disproven, because the rise in young adult cancer has taken place over decades, but the vaccines have only been around for a few years.

What can be done?

To address the rise in younger colorectal cancer, in 2021 the US lowered the recommended age for screening to 45. Other countries have yet to follow suit.

But the researchers hoped that Catherine’s experience would remind people at home that they should consult their doctor if they sense anything is wrong.

“People know their bodies really well,” Sivakumar said.

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“If you really feel that something isn’t right, don’t delay — just get yourself checked out.”

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Almost 3,000 students suspended in Waterloo Region over immunization issues

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Close to 3,000 children attending elementary school across Waterloo Region were suspended from school on Wednesday morning for not having up-to-date immunization records.

The region says Waterloo Public Health suspended 2,969 students under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA).

For several months, the region has been campaigning for people to get their children’s vaccinations up to date, including sending letters home to parents on a couple of occasions, warning that students’ records needed to be up to date or they would be suspended.

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It announced in January that 32,000 students did not have up-to-date records: 22,000 elementary students and 10,000 high school students.


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“We have made remarkable progress from the original 27,567 immunization notices we sent to parents in November and December 2023,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health, stated.

“Since that time, we have resolved more than 24,500 outdated vaccination records, providing students with valuable protection against these serious and preventable diseases.”

The high school students still have a few weeks to get their records up to date or else face suspension.

The ISPA requires students to have proof-of-vaccination records for diphtheria, polio, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chickenpox) and meningitis, which must be on file with public health.

Public health says caregivers whose children are suspended will need to book an appointment at regionofwaterloo.ca/vaccines for clinics, which will be held in Cambridge and Waterloo on weekdays.

“Given the high number of suspensions, it may take several days before you can be seen at an appointment and return your child to school,” a release from the region warns.

“Record submission and questions must be done in person to ensure immediate resolution.”

The last time suspensions over immunizations were issued was in 2019, when 1,032 students were suspended.

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