TY - JOUR
AU - Castanon, Alejandra
AU - Rebolj, Matejka
AU - Burger, Emily Annika
AU - de Kok, Inge M. C. M.
AU - Smith, Megan A.
AU - Hanley, Sharon J.B.
AU - Carozzi, Francesca Maria
AU - Peacock, Stuart
AU - O'Mahony, James F.
PY - 2021
DA - April
TI - Cervical screening during the COVID-19 pandemic: optimising recovery strategies
JO - Lancet Public Health
EP - E527
VL - 6
IS - 7
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00078-5
AB - Disruptions to cancer screening services have been experienced in most settings as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ideally, programmes would resolve backlogs by temporarily expanding capacity; however, in practice, this is often not possible. We aim to inform the deliberations of decision makers in high-income settings regarding their cervical cancer screening policy response. We caution against performance measures that rely solely on restoring testing volumes to pre-pandemic levels because they will be less effective at mitigating excess cancer diagnoses than will targeted measures. These measures might exacerbate pre-existing inequalities in accessing cervical screening by disregarding the risk profile of the individuals attending. Modelling of cervical screening outcomes before and during the pandemic supports risk-based strategies as the most effective way for screening services to recover. The degree to which screening is organised will determine the feasibility of deploying some risk-based strategies, but implementation of age-based risk stratification should be universally feasible.
PB - Elsevier
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/2164/19896
KW - Coronavirus (COVID-19)
ER