NHS ‘wrong’ to halt treatment for cancer

NHS hospitals were wrong to tell cancer patients to postpone treatment during the first Covid wave, a study suggests.

New data found that patients in need of chemotherapy, immunotherapy or surgery fared better on average if they continued with treatment normally, even if they caught Covid.

The findings undermine the initial stance taken by medical leaders, who feared patients undergoing treatments that suppress the immune system would be at risk of death from the virus.

Last March this led the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) formally to advise oncologists to consider warning patients to stay away from hospitals.

The advice meant thousands of treatments were deliberately postponed, on top of those that could not take place in hospitals overwhelmed by Covid.

However, data soon to be published by the UK Coronavirus Cancer Monitoring Project show that for patients in need of chemotherapy, there was no added risk to undergoing the treatment compared with having no treatment or a different treatment.

For cancers involving a tumour, immunotherapy, hormonal therapy and surgery, there was an advantage to continuing with chemotherapy.

Prof Gary Middleton, who led the project, said: “We should be putting out the message very, very, very loud and clear that it’s safer for patients with cancer to receive chemotherapy and immunotherapy.”