American oncologists are concerned about the more frequent appearance of certain “unusual” cancers that have been noticed since the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“I have been practicing for 23 years and I have never seen anything like this”, testified to the Washington Post the Dr Kashyap Patel, president and CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates.
In 2021, the oncologist met a patient in his forties diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and deadly cancer of the bile ducts that usually strikes much older people.
Seven other cases of this type of cancer were recorded in the practice in the year following this medical appointment.
“We were all shaken,” another oncologist, Dr.r Asutosh Gor.
Subsequently, several other patients who visited the office found themselves suffering from several types of cancer almost at the same time and more than a dozen new cases of rare cancers were observed.
An increase in cases of aggressive cancers at an advanced stage since the start of the pandemic has been confirmed by certain preliminary national data and by several cancer establishments, according to the American daily.
The Dr Patel wonders whether there may be a link between COVID-19 and the onset of these types of cancer, particularly because of the disruption to health care during the pandemic.
He is one of the specialists who have appealed to the American government to make this issue a priority since it could affect the treatment and care of millions of cancer patients in the years to come.
“We’re not studying this virus enough,” said Douglas C. Wallace, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “The effects of repeated infection throughout our lives will be much greater than we think.”
For the moment, there is no real data to establish a link between COVID-19 and cancer, recalled the Washington Post.
