Many doctors and scientists in the US are on high alert as they are now investigating whether the COVID-19 virus is responsible for an “unusual pattern” of rare and deadly cancers that have skyrocketed in the wake of the pandemic.
After concluding that they had compelling evidence among their own patients suggesting a link between COVID and cancer diagnoses, a group of medical experts banded together to launch a research study and share data. The Washington Post report.
“I’ve been in this business for 23 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Kashyap Patel, a South Carolina oncologist and CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, said of the rise in cases he’s seen.
Patel, who is calling for a national registry to analyze trends, said he has already collected data from dozens of his own patients that shows a possible link between rare cancers and long COVID.
“We hope we’re wrong,” said Afshin Beheshti, head of the International COVID-19 Research Team, “but unfortunately, everything is moving in that direction.”
Beheshti, who specializes in cancer biology and is one of the researchers trying to unravel this mystery, said he has noticed during the pandemic that cases and studies are showing that COVID-19 is causing widespread inflammation and infection in organs that are susceptible to the development of cancer stem cells.
“The signal appears to be related to changes in the early stages of cancer,” he said.
There is no real data or conclusive research yet on whether COVID has actually contributed to the surge in cancer cases.
Aggressive cancers have risen since the pandemic began, a trend that some medical experts blame on disruptions to care, including hospitals being forced to turn away cancer patients and those who weren’t diagnosed early due to fears of the virus.
But US-based doctors are urging the federal government to prioritise research as the answer could impact cancer patient treatment and disease management for decades to come.
“We are completely understudied on this virus,” Douglas C. Wallace, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the outlet.
“If you’re exposed to this repeatedly throughout your life, the impacts are going to be much more significant than people think.”
“I think most governments don’t want to think about long COVID-19, much less long COVID-19 and cancer,” he continued. “Governments have spent so much on the COVID-19 response that they have very little funding for the long-term effects of the virus. I don’t think that’s a wise choice.”
Wallace is currently investigating how and whether COVID-19 affects cellular energy production and vulnerability to cancer.
Meanwhile, in a separate study, other doctors are sequencing the genetic profiles of cancer patients who died from COVID-19, and investigating whether the virus can reactivate dormant cancer cells in mice.
The study comes after a new study suggests COVID vaccines may be partly responsible for an “unprecedented” rise in excess deaths in the United States and other Western countries in the three years since the pandemic began.
Scientists from the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands analysed mortality data from 47 Western countries and concluded that excess mortality rates have “remained high” since 2020, despite the widespread rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and various containment measures.
The researchers said the trend “raises serious concerns” and called on government leaders and policymakers to “thoroughly investigate the underlying causes of the persistent excess deaths.” BMJ Public Health.
