In a study published in ESMO Open, Hanna Peacock and colleagues compared the nationwide rates of new diagnoses of invasive cancers in 2020 to 2019, using accelerated delivery of data from pathology laboratories to the Belgian Cancer Registry. They observed a 44% reduction in diagnosis of invasive tumors during first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in April 2020 versus April 2019. Over the entire year 2020, a persistent 6% decline in diagnosis of all invasive cancers was observed.

The publication is available via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esmoop.2021.100197.