Liz Satterfield has a ritual when it returns for each house once after leaving the house. learn diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2016, the resident of Kirkland, Washington recently that the cancer had spread to the brain in 2018 still grew. In the course of the pandemic, which the hospital once to visit at least once every three weeks, often more likely to control their disease to treat. “I have a pair of shoes in a paper bag that I keep in the trunk of my car or a rack in the garage. I wear only shoes when I” get in’ll treatment, it says. “When I get home, I undress in the garage and did everything right in the wash. Do not have entered the house with something that I wore to the Cancer Center. It ‘s the way we are able to control the situation, I can control this situation, and gave my partner and a bit ‘of peace. “While COVID-19 reversed the lives of all me, the influence of the novel crown on patients especially troubling cancer. Each infectious disease that control the immune system should avoid high-list-especially for those getting chemotherapy or radiotherapy, both its natural defenses weaken. So that leaves cancer patients caught in the middle of two terrible diseases. Nearly 17 million people in the US living with cancer, many of whom, like Satterfield, are currently being treated for their disease and forced these difficult weighing their cancer risk calculations against the risk of getting COVID-19 Studies have suggested cancer patients who are infected, that their death rate is -than those without cancer from 13% to 28% higher than the rich (although these numbers continue to change as more data are available). Find the latest research findings confirmed with TIME guide for cancer prevention. This risk could have a lasting effect on cancer rates and deaths in the coming years. CAN among patients of existing cancer who are concerned about the risk of COVID-19 and either delay or skip treatment, and those who have not yet diagnosed, but hesitates to their doctor for possible symptoms of cancer to see, experts say both mortality rates and new cases Stalking. “There are people who are scared to death to even come close to the cancer center,” says Dr. Leslie Busby, a Rocky Mountain Cancer Center Partners. influence a rough estimate of how the pandemic death of the only breast cancer and colon alone could by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) conducted projected 10,000 additional deaths from these two types of cancer on top of the expected 1 million in next ten years, based on the assumption that projected just six months to be stopped. The model does not take into account people who have not been diagnosed and delay their doctors to see and therefore can not be diagnosed, are more advanced for their cancer and more difficult to treat. “We do not know what the level of interference will not care, but I think it’s pretty much been, and it will take a while ‘,” says Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the NCI, who on behalf of the forecast. He notes that the increase in deaths and incidence of cancer due COVID-19 also complicated by the fact that it can be hidden frequency, for example, can also soak for a bit ‘, in which fewer and fewer people are always screening and fewer tumors are actually found, mortality can be confused by the fact that the majority of cancer deaths in elderly patients, and the elderly are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19 complications, so that causes the total pandemic cancer deaths actually tempoerarily may decrease. these confounding factors given, and which take many years to develop cancer of the fact, is not clear exactly how COVID-19 still influenced cancer rates and deaths for many years. “If you think that the treatment of cancer, there is little choice,” says Dr. Robert Keenan, medical director and vice president of quality at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. Patients treated with chemotherapy by intravenous infusion, which must be dosed and administered under medical care, calibrated and require higher doses of radiation to certified technicians in hospitals. And if the patient chemotherapy or radiation regimens have started, usually they undergo treatment for several weeks, with each building cycle on their last best chance to wear cancer down and stop the malignant cells grow and be spread. Since the wave of the pandemic has begun, each of them usually patients of cancer doctors evaluated to decide if it needs to come to their treatments, or if she could postpone the session for a week or radiotherapy for safer chemotherapy infusion or. Nancy Fleming, a former hospital pharmacists who have been diagnosed with lung cancer small cell in 2019 after surviving breast cancer in 2003, will receive an infusion of an immunotherapy drug once a month at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute Boston, Mass. If the cases COVID- 19 increased to Boston in April her oncologist, Dr. Jacob Sands, who hit a scare of their infusions for a week. He says that, depending on how well each patient was doing and how well controlled was such decisions on a case by case basis their cancer. “For someone controlling current disease has where everything is stable, and they had been for more than a year in therapy were those cases in which we delay by one week of treatment would discuss two weeks or three weeks,” says Sand. continue their treatments convince them it was not easy, though. “There was a lot of grip and virtual telephone hand,” says Keenan. “We tried to take measures to create an environment that lets patients know that [the cancer center] was as a place for a safe as any to come in for their treatment.” In many hospitals and cancer centers, patients and employees were screening of patients and staff for fever and symptoms COVID-19, and many visitors come for their limited treatments with the patient. Every care that may be made practically available, has been moved to video or telephone conference, which reduce the density of people. stack up waiting rooms were at Moffitt, Keenan says clinic visits declined by 40% to 50%, and patients scheduled appointments to avoid. Dana Farber says sand “patients generally have been able to directly get in a private room, when you are presented and we were completely isolate people in a position so that you do not sit next to each other in the room d ‘ waiting. ” These signals are important for putting cancer patients at ease, right Busby, asked non-essential employees to work from home. “These practices have contributed both to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 and signals sent to our patients that we were doing our best to protect their health,” he says. The discussion of these precautions carefully helped convince some patients to continue their treatment. This policy, however, was more difficult to accept for patients. Many cancer centers stopped so that visitors come to patients during their treatment appointments that can stretch as the chemotherapy infusions for several hours to take at least 30 minutes normally. “It ‘is to have a family like at ease,” said Fleming. “If you are a patient, if you are sick, it is sometimes difficult to absorb all that heard it. It ‘s always good to have a lawyer with you.” For patients with breast cancer, there were other options. At the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Lisa Carey says the pandemic, she changes the therapies offered patients. At the beginning of “pandemic, for patients whose cancer was hormone sensitive, I put on anti-estrogen [pills], we have that water could come and keep an eye on the tumor for a few months , while the expected [COVID-19] dust to settle before they come to an unknown degree of risk to expose to the hospital for chemotherapy infusions, “he says. The oral treatment, usually given before or with chemotherapy for maximum effectiveness, allowing the patient to treat his cancer and not their compromised care, avoiding the risks of COVID 19-hospital exposure. “The truth is, these things that we seemed to protect the work,” says Carey. being exposed to patients protect themselves from viruses, some leading to decisions to provide the available chemotherapy. “If I was given every three weeks, the choice between a [chemotherapy] drugs every week, and a similar figure, he regularly now for what he has given every three weeks,” he says. “Although there are some side effects more to the number of times to come, when a patient has reduced, then this is a conversation I had with them.” similar adaptation are possible for radiation treatment in some cases. Normally, the radiation is divided into smaller, daily fractions to preserve healthy tissue around the cancer from the toxic effects of single explosion. For patients with breast cancer, the last, although early studies, the patient followed for five years long, suggested that much shorter treatment cycles given over five days compared to 30, for example, could even in cancer control to be effective, “Normally it would not [as first results] embrace in daily practice as quickly as we except the pandemic,” says Dr. Reshma Jagsi, vice chairman of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan. “But some patients were not willing to take the risk with long-term tests of trust and safety of five years the data were certainly compelling and fascinating.” They have for the most part, understood the importance of the continuation of cancer patients on their treatment and their risk of cancer by balancing against the risk of getting COVID-19 In fact, Busby says, “it is not so much our patients, but we fear that patients who are not yet with us. ” Stopped most of the routine of the hospital dates cancer screening for things like mammograms and colonoscopies to detect cancer early is important. And many people who could have potentially cancer symptoms and remain undiagnosed, not to the doctor because of fears COVID-19. That being the case, and only the data on cancer rates in the coming months and years is to provide the answer, it is possible that to increase both the number of new cancer cases and their severity due to the pandemic. “My concern is for patients who, for those patients who have not been diagnosed with cancer delayed their screening;” Tried for patients who were put off for some symptoms, says Jagsi. “Patients will be diagnosed at later stages, and I have great concern that the results of treatment will change caused by cancer.” Progress has been helping doctors more regularly patients the diagnosis in the early stages of screening in recent years, where its still treatable and curable Jagsi brands has. “I fear that some COVID-19 delays endanger some of the progress that we could see.” As COVID-19 are cut down profits until further data on new cases of cancer is not clear, available in the coming months. But most experts agree that “it is hard to imagine that the pandemic would contribute to a better situation is” forced to be worse, says Carey. Meanwhile, the patient learns what changes they continue to do their possible treatments with as little disruption and as safely, must agree to guarantee. Satterfield has two COVID-19 test was because the chemotherapy she gives her a runny nose, cough and diarrhea receive all the symptoms of COVID-19 that will be in when it comes to screening for their treatments before entering the cancer center. But it’s good that goes with and why it is needed. For them, “the hardest part is emotional. With any terminal illness, is there, I think it’s the way the world will be when I die? That’s how I see the end of my life? But I feel better than I did. In recent memory does not sound much like my health so great, I feel great. And I’m grateful for that. “Copyright Image
Crown can flip in the US cancer trends
