Carethers John M
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California.
Moores Cancer Center, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California.
Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2025 Jun 2;18(6):313-319. doi: 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-25-0007.
Cancer screening lowers morbidity and mortality from cancer and is cost-effective. The COVID-19 pandemic upended cancer screening utilization in 2020 with data showing a deficit in screened patients in 2020 and 2021 as compared with 2019, with return to 2019 baseline screening levels by December 2022. The cumulative shortfall in screenings, lasting nearly 3 years into the pandemic, is predicted by models to generate an incremental population cancer burden in the out-years of the models. Recovery of screening rates may vary based on the racial or ethnic population, and time will tell if there is an uneven burden of future cancers that worsen cancer incidence and mortality in those populations, some even after years of gains of reducing disparities for cancer screening. For some cancer screenings, particularly cervical and colorectal cancers, use of at-home noninvasive tests may increase screening participation overall across multiple populations and help mitigate some of the screening shortfalls from 2020 to 2022 by elevating numbers of the population screened. For colorectal cancer, new additional comparably sensitive or ease-of-use noninvasive screening tests are being added for utilization.
癌症筛查可降低癌症的发病率和死亡率，且具有成本效益。2020年，新冠疫情扰乱了癌症筛查的利用情况，数据显示，与2019年相比，2020年和2021年接受筛查的患者数量有所不足，到2022年12月才恢复到2019年的基线筛查水平。模型预测，持续近3年的疫情期间筛查累计不足，将在模型预测的未来几年增加总体人群的癌症负担。筛查率的恢复可能因种族或族裔人群而异，未来这些人群中癌症负担是否不均衡，从而使癌症发病率和死亡率恶化，即使在多年来致力于减少癌症筛查差距之后仍会如此，时间将给出答案。对于某些癌症筛查，尤其是宫颈癌和结直肠癌筛查，使用家庭无创检测可能会提高多个人群的总体筛查参与率，并通过增加筛查人数来缓解2020年至2022年期间的部分筛查不足。对于结直肠癌，正在增加新的、具有相当敏感性或使用方便的无创筛查检测方法以供使用。
