Post-COVID Surge in Rare and Multiple Cancers Raises Alarms

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Post-COVID Surge in Rare and Multiple Cancers Raises Alarms

Shocking Discovery in the U.S. Medical Community: A Surge in Rare Cancers After COVID-19! Are Multiple Cancers Affecting People Globally at the Same Time?

It has been about two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and while many people have moved on, the discussion around its impact is far from over.

Recently, scientists and medical professionals in the U.S. dropped a bombshell that was widely reported by media outlets like The Washington Post. They have discovered something quite peculiar: the incidence of cancer has significantly increased following the COVID-19 pandemic. But is COVID-19 truly to blame?

Post-COVID Surge in Rare and Multiple Cancers Raises Alarms

The Story Behind the Discovery

Every Friday, a group of oncologists in North Carolina meets for lunch to discuss their treatment experiences. Kashyap Patel, CEO of the Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, organizes these gatherings. One Friday in 2021, during the height of the pandemic, Patel mentioned a patient of his — a man in his 40s with bile duct cancer, a type of cancer that usually affects people in their 70s or 80s. Patel remarked that the patient was unusually young for such a diagnosis.

Initially, there was silence, but soon the discussion picked up. Several doctors noted they had treated similar cases recently. Within a year of that meeting, the small circle of doctors had encountered seven more such cases. “In my 23 years of practice, I had never seen anything like this,” Patel recalled.

Other oncologists, like Asutosh Gor, also expressed their shock. Moreover, there were reports of multiple patients developing various types of cancers simultaneously — not due to metastasis but as separate primary cancers. There were also a dozen or so cases of rare cancers that had newly emerged.

Bob Krall, a resident of Fort Mill, South Carolina, never expected to have such a deep connection with cancer. Within 14 months, he and his wife, Bonnie Krall, were diagnosed with three types of cancer. In 2022, Bob consulted Patel after being diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a rare cancer that affects only four to five people per 100,000. Later, Bob discovered that several of his neighbors, who had also been infected with COVID-19, developed the same cancer. “It’s like a cold — everyone seems to have gotten it,” he said.

During one of Bob’s treatments, his wife Bonnie complained of persistent stomach pain that didn’t respond to medication. Patel conducted tests and found a malignant cyst in her abdomen, which weighed 8.5 pounds during surgery a few weeks later. A few months after Bonnie’s diagnosis, Bob was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Since the onset of COVID-19, Patel’s clinic has seen over 15 patients with multiple cancers, around 35 patients with rare cancers, and 15 couples diagnosed with new cancers simultaneously. The Kralls had been infected with COVID-19 during the pandemic, and doctors suggested this might be why they were diagnosed with multiple cancers.

Patel, who has been practicing for over 20 years, had never encountered such cases before. He began to wonder if the coronavirus could be responsible for all of this.

Is COVID-19 Linked to a Surge in Cancer Cases?

Meanwhile, there have been reports of a “cancer cluster” among employees in an office building in Sydney, raising questions about a potential link to the coronavirus.

Researchers have found that COVID-19 may significantly increase the risk of developing cancer, even after patients have recovered. Data from some cancer institutions in the U.S. indicate a rise in aggressive, late-stage cancers since the outbreak of COVID-19. Initially, many believed this increase was due to disruptions in medical services during the pandemic.

However, some researchers, including Dr. Patel, have a different perspective. Since the 1960s, it has been known that viruses can accelerate cancer development. Researchers estimate that a quarter of all cancers worldwide are caused by viruses like human papillomavirus (HPV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and hepatitis B virus. Laboratory tests have shown that coronavirus proteins can activate dormant cancer cells and promote their growth, thereby increasing the risk of breast, stomach, and blood cancers.

Due to a lack of comprehensive data, many top cancer experts in the U.S. are divided over whether COVID-19 directly leads to more cancer cases. John T. Schiller, a leading researcher at the National Institutes of Health and a pioneer in studying oncogenic viruses, does not believe that the coronavirus causes cancer. He argues that known cancer-causing pathogens persist in the human body for long periods. Respiratory viruses like influenza, RSV, and the coronavirus usually disappear after infecting a person and should not cause cancer.

However, David Tuveson, former president of the American Association for Cancer Research and director of the Cancer Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, has his own theory. While there is currently no evidence that the coronavirus directly alters cells to make them cancerous, he believes it is still possible.

Some early studies have suggested that COVID-19 infections can trigger inflammatory cascades and other responses that might theoretically promote cancer cell growth. The harm COVID-19 causes to the body is similar to other carcinogenic environmental stressors, such as tobacco, alcohol, asbestos, or microplastics.

“The coronavirus damages the body, which is the starting point for cancer,” Tuveson said. Autopsy studies of patients who died from COVID-19 have shown signs of premature aging in their tissues. A report in the journal Biochimie in 2023 described various ways that the coronavirus alters genes that prevent tumor formation and leads to widespread inflammation, which could potentially cause cancer in organs like the lungs, pancreas, and colon.

A research team in Colorado has begun investigating the possibility that the coronavirus could cause cancer cells to regrow in mice. A preprint published in April showed that injecting the coronavirus into mice that had previously had cancer but were in remission resulted in the proliferation and spread of cancer cells in the lungs.

Xuesong Han, Scientific Director of Health Services Research at the American Cancer Society, attributed the increase in late-stage cancer cases during the pandemic to people delaying or forgoing treatment due to fear of the virus or economic reasons, along with cultural factors, language barriers, and discrimination. However, he also acknowledged that the biological mechanisms of COVID-19 might contribute to cancer development. “I don’t have data to support this view… but it’s an important question that requires further investigation.”