'Unusual' cancers emerged after the pandemic. Doctors ask if covid is to blame. (really long) [View all]

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It was 2021, a year into the coronavirus pandemic, and as he slid into a chair, Patel shared that he’d just seen a patient in his 40s with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and lethal cancer of the bile ducts that typically strikes people in their 70s and 80s. Initially, there was silence, and then one colleague after another said they’d recently treated patients who had similar diagnoses. Within a year of that meeting, the office had recorded seven such cases. There was other weirdness, too: multiple patients contending with multiple types of cancer arising almost simultaneously, and more than a dozen new cases of other rare cancers.

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From his practice in this Southern town, Patel is conducting his own research into what he has taken to calling “an unusual pattern” of cancers. He is driven by watching patients — especially younger ones — die so quickly.

He’s looking at potential correlations between long-covid markers and unusual cancers. He has collected data from nearly 300 patients and wants to create a national registry to analyze trends. So far, his office has logged more than 15 patients with multiple cancers, more than 35 patients with rare cancers and more than 15 couples with new cancers since the pandemic began in 2020.

Patel theorizes the effects of coronavirus infections could be cumulative in people infected multiple times. Pandemic-related stress may compound the threat, he said, by exacerbating inflammation. If a link is established between the virus and cancer, he said, doctors might identify patients at greater risk and implement screenings earlier and even put some patients on anti-inflammatory drugs.

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