The initial stage of the pandemic caused a dramatic fall in the number of diagnoses of the three most common forms of cancer in Scotland.
Data from Public Health Scotland reveals that during the first nine months of the pandemic between April and December 2020 there were 2,681 patients diagnosed with breast cancer, 1,958 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer and 3,287 patients diagnosed with lung cancer.
Public Health Scotland said these numbers were 19% (breast), 25% (colorectal) and 9% (lung) lower than would have been expected in this period were it not for Covid.
However, the data also showed that in the remaining months of the 2020 financial year, the numbers of people diagnosed with breast and lung cancer started to return to pre-pandemic levels, although colorectal figures remained well below previous years.
For breast cancer, there were large falls in the numbers of people in stages 1 and 2 (35% and 15% respectively).
In contrast, there were small increases in people in stages 3 and 4 (5% and 7%), with the biggest increase seen for those of unknown stage (34%).
For colorectal cancer, there were substantial drops (30% and more) in the numbers diagnosed with stages 1, 2 or 3 colorectal cancer; whereas there was only a 4% drop for metastatic colorectal cancer.
For lung cancer, there were falls of 11%-13% for people in stages 1, 2 and 3; but only a fall of 4% for stage 4 diagnoses.
