MONTREAL --
While the prospect of mass vaccination has raised hopes of the COVID-19 crisis soon waning, oncologists and cancer researchers say one of its grim legacies may be a lingering increase in cancer mortality rates.
The pandemic caused a "dramatic" drop in cancer screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies, leading to fewer diagnoses, according to Dr. Gerald Batist, the head of the Segal Cancer Centre at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital.
"It just looks like less people were diagnosed, and they were, but there weren't fewer people with that diagnosis," Batist said in a phone interview. "They simply weren't found."