Fewer cases of children’s cancer picked up during Covid pandemic, study finds

Intensive care admissions were up, suggesting disease was more severe by time of diagnosis

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The number of children and young adults diagnosed with cancer dropped significantly during the first wave of the Covid pandemic, researchers have found.

The Teenage Cancer Trust expressed “enormous concern” over the findings and said it was essential to understand how the drop has affected young patients.

Researchers from the University of Oxford sought to find how the pandemic had affected children with cancer. They examined incidence rates, length of time before diagnosis and cancer-related intensive care admissions for children and people up to the age of 25.