Thousands of people with lung cancer have gone undiagnosed in England in the past year, the NHS has warned.
Health chiefs say people may be mistaking symptoms of the disease for coronavirus or avoiding getting medical help because they think the NHS is too busy.
Lung cancer is one of the biggest killers in the UK and caused the deaths of almost 20,000 people in 2018 — behind only to dementia and heart disease.
It is extremely difficult to treat and only around one in 10 patients survive for more than a decade after first being diagnosed.
The NHS in England said it has only seen about three quarters of the number of lung cancer patients it usually would during the coronavirus pandemic, meaning 'a few thousand' people have gone without the medical care they need.