Fewer surgeries and failed check-ups: After the Corona crisis, there is a risk of an increase in cancer diagnoses. According to a study, the number of clinic treatments will decrease even more in 2022. The AOK sees an "alarming" trend.
The AOK warns of an imminent increase in serious cancers as a result of the corona pandemic. "Due to a lack of early detection and unusual treatments, it is possible that we are pushing ahead with a bow wave of additional disease burden, especially in the case of cancer," said health insurance boss Carola Reimann to the newspapers of the Funke media group. The decline in preventive check-ups and colon cancer operations is particularly worrying.
Last year there were 16 percent fewer colon cancer operations than in the pre-pandemic period, reported the chairwoman of the AOK federal association. The decline in preventive check-ups, especially for early cancer detection, is also particularly alarming: the data already available from 2022 shows that the number of preventive check-ups in the first half of the year, especially for cervical cancer and skin cancer, has fallen by eleven percent compared to 2019.
“So far, the number of check-ups has not returned to the old, pre-pandemic level,” said Reimann. Those who do not attend check-ups increase their risk of serious illnesses. "The later a disease is discovered, the more difficult the treatment often becomes," warned the health insurance boss. According to Reimann, the evaluation of the insured person's data for 2022 shows an "alarming" trend overall: the total number of hospital treatments and check-ups continued to decrease after 2020 and 2021, even in the third year of the pandemic.
"In terms of the total number of cases in hospital treatments, we had a 13 percent decrease in 2020 compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019, a year later the decrease was 14 percent. In 2022, hospital cases fell by 15 percent by November compared to 2019." This is worrying because people are probably no healthier than they used to be, said the chairwoman of the AOK federal association.
