Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2021
Impact of COVID-19 on cervical cancer screening: Challenges and opportunities to improving resilience and reduce disparities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has a major impact on a wide range of health outcomes. Disruptions of elective health services related to cervical screening, management of abnormal screening test results, and treatment of precancers, may lead to increases in cervical cancer incidence and exacerbate existing health disparities. Modeling studies suggest that a short delay of cervical screening in subjects with previously negative HPV results has minor effects on cancer outcomes, while delay of management and treatment can lead to larger increases in cervical cancer. ⋯ Self-collection and can also provide alternative screening approaches during the pandemic because testing can be supported by telehealth and specimens collected in the home, substantially reducing patient-provider contact and risk of COVID-19 exposure, and also expanding the reach of catch-up services to address backlogs of screening tests that accumulated during the pandemic. Risk-based management allows prioritizing management of patients at highest risk of cervical cancer while extending screening intervals for those at lowest risk. The pandemic provides important lessons for how to make cervical screening more resilient to disruptions and how to reduce cervical cancer disparities that may be exacerbated due to disruptions of health services.
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2021
Modelling the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of population-based colorectal cancer screening.
COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected regular public health interventions including population-based cancer screening. Impacts of such screening delays on the changes in structure and screening process and the resultant long-term outcomes are unknown. It is therefore necessary to develop a systematic framework to assess theses impacts related to these components of quality. ⋯ The corresponding statistically findings of four delayed schedules for death from colorectal cancer (CRC) were 26%, 28%, 29%, and 30%, respectively. The higher social distancing index led to a lower capacity of uptake screening and a larger reduction of FTE, resulting in longer screening delay and longer waiting time, which further impacted long-term outcomes as above. In summary, a systematic modelling approach was developed for demonstrating the strong impact of screening delays caused by COVID-19 epidemic on long-term outcomes illustrated with a Taiwan population-based FIT screening of CRC.
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2021
Impact of the suspension and restart of the Dutch breast cancer screening program on breast cancer incidence and stage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Dutch national breast screening program to a halt in week 12, 2020. In week 26, the breast program was resumed at 40% capacity, which increased to 60% in week 34. We examined the impact of the suspension and restart of the screening program on the incidence of screen-detected and non-screen-detected breast cancer. ⋯ The decrease in incidence was seen in all age groups and mainly occurred for cTis, cT1, DCIS, and stage I tumors. Due to the suspension of the breast cancer screening program, and the restart at reduced capacity, the incidence of screen-detected breast tumors decreased by 67% during weeks 9-35 2020, which equates to about 2000 potentially delayed breast cancer diagnoses. Up to August 2020 there was no indication of a shift towards higher stage breast cancers after restart of the screening.
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2021
Mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on colorectal cancer screening: Organized service screening perspectives from the Asia-Pacific region.
Colorectal cancer(CRC) is one of the most prevalent malignancies in the Asia-Pacific region, and many countries in this region have launched population CRC service screening. In this study, CRC screening key indicators, including the FIT(fecal immunochemical test) screening rate (or participation rate) and the rate of undergoing colonoscopy after positive FIT in 2019 and 2020, were surveyed in individual countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The impact of the pandemic on the effectiveness of CRC screening was simulated given different screening rates and colonoscopy rates and assuming the pandemic would persist or remain poorly controlled for a long period of time, using the empirical data from the Taiwanese program and the CRC natural history model. ⋯ The modeling study revealed that prolonged pauses of screening led to 6% lower effectiveness in reducing CRC mortality. Screening organizers should coordinate with health authorities to elaborate on addressing screening backlogs, setting priorities for screening, and applying modern technologies to overcome potential obstacles. Many novel approaches that were developed and applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the risk-stratified approach that takes into account personal CRC risk and the local epidemic status, as well as new digital technologies, are expected to play important roles in CRC screening in the future.