Department of Economics and Engineering, University of Viterbo "La Tuscia", Viterbo, Italy.
Breast Unit, Policlinico Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy.
Front Public Health. 2020 Dec 16;8:601748. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.601748. eCollection 2020.
Italy introduced social distancing measures, which limited the spread of COVID-19; all the non-life-threatening treatments have been temporarily suspended, including screening programs. This decision leads to unintended effects on the ability to detected neoplasia in their first stages. Possible future outcomes of the ability to detect new breast cancer cases based on two alternative scenarios show that the reduction in organized screening activities will limit the ability to detect no <3.43% of the new cases; the economic crisis will reduce voluntary screening, increasing the undetected new cases up to 11.73%. Cases diagnosed with delay will show up in their advanced stage along with unknown effects on mortality and health care costs. Global health care policies should be implemented to counterbalance these adverse effects.
意大利采取了社会隔离措施，限制了 COVID-19 的传播；所有非危及生命的治疗都已暂时暂停，包括筛查计划。这一决定对在早期阶段发现肿瘤的能力产生了意想不到的影响。根据两种替代情况，对发现新乳腺癌病例能力的可能未来结果表明，减少有组织的筛查活动将限制发现新病例的能力，减少幅度小于 3.43%；经济危机将减少自愿筛查，使未检出的新病例增加到 11.73%。由于无法确定对死亡率和医疗保健成本的影响，延迟诊断的病例将进入晚期。应实施全球卫生保健政策来平衡这些不利影响。
