DAC analysis
Again more cancer screening in the first half of 2021
A doctor examines a patient’s breast: Since the outbreak of the pandemic, significantly fewer people have gone to cancer screening than before. Photo: Caroline Seidel/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The number of check-ups has risen again compared to the same period of the previous year. The increase was particularly strong in mammography for the early detection of breast cancer.
According to an analysis, more people went for cancer screening in the first few months of last year than in the first year of the pandemic.
This emerges from a special evaluation by the health insurance company DAK, which was available to the German Press Agency in advance. Accordingly, the number of preventive examinations rose by around 14 percent compared to the same period last year.
The increase was particularly strong in mammography for the early detection of breast cancer. According to the DAK, there was an increase of 44 percent. The number of skin cancer screening tests increased by 18 percent compared to the first half of 2020.
At the same time, the health insurance company points out that since the outbreak of the pandemic, significantly fewer people have gone to cancer screening than before. This also applies to 2021. The value for the first half of the year was around twelve percent below the pre-corona level of 2019, it said. Other health insurance companies such as AOK and Barmer and the German Cancer Society (DKG) also pointed out this overall decline this week.
DAK CEO Andreas Storm called the result of the special analysis “a positive signal”. However, the aim must be “to reach the level before the corona pandemic in cancer prevention”. “Despite the recognizable catching-up effect, this has not yet been fully achieved,” Storm told the German Press Agency. In times of a pandemic, there is still a risk that tumor diseases will be discovered too late.