A MILLION WOMEN MISS VITAL BREAST SCREENING
Revealed: Huge lockdown backlog means thousands could have undetected cancer
A million women have missed out on breast cancer screening as a result of lockdown. The huge backlog means the killer disease may have gone undetected in around 8,600 of them.
The charity Breast Cancer Now estimates that 986,000 patients are waiting for life-saving mammograms because screening ground to a halt when the pandemic struck.
early diagnosis hugely improves survival chances and doctors warned the delays mean young and otherwise healthy women will ‘die unnecessarily’. The screening programme, which prevents around 1,300 deaths and detects 19,000 cases a year, was suspended for four months in March.
Today’s shocking figures highlight the catastrophic impact of the pandemic on millions of patients with conditions other than Covid-19.
Reports have highlighted official data showing that nearly 75,000
lives could be lost through the unintended consequences of lockdown including cancer treatment delays.
It will increase pressure on Boris Johnson to hold back on a second lockdown, with campaigners stressing that cancer care ‘cannot afford to be paused again’.
Experts warned that the NHS had an ‘enormous mountain to climb’ to clear the screening backlog. The breast X-rays, which are an essential tool for spotting breast cancer early, are offered to women aged 50 to 71 every three years.
Although NHS screening has now resumed, many clinics have had to reduce the number of appointments because of social distancing and infection control.
The NHS is also facing a desperate shortage of diagnostic staff to carry out the checks – a quarter of health trusts have vacant breast radiologist roles.
Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive of Breast Cancer Now, said: ‘That nearly one million women across the UK were caught up in the backlog waiting for breast screening is cause for grave concern as we know that around 8,600 of these women could have been living with undetected breast cancer.
‘Mammograms are a key tool in the early detection of breast cancer, which is critical to stopping women dying from the disease. We cannot afford for the programme to be paused again.’
Around 55,000 cases of breast cancer are detected every year in the UK, causing 11,500 deaths. Nine in ten women diagnosed at the earliest stage live for at least five years, compared with just 15 per cent of those diagnosed at the most advanced stage.
Between March and July, some 107,000 fewer women were referred to a specialist with suspected cases of breast cancer compared to the same period last year. Hundreds of thousands of cancer patients have had vital scans, tests, surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy delayed or cancelled as a result of Covid-19.
Some of these procedures would have saved or extended lives, granting cancer patients precious extra time.
Yesterday, leaked data obtained by the Health Service Journal revealed more than 6,000 NHS patients have been waiting more than 100 days following a referral to cancer services. The number on the cancer waiting list grew from 50,000 at the start of August to around 58,000 in the middle of September.
Mary Wilson, consultant breast radiologist and lead for the National Breast Imaging Academy Project, said: ‘To not only maintain pre-pandemic levels of activity, but also do a huge catch-up with inadequate workforce levels is an enormous mountain to climb.’
Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist at the University of Buckingham, said: ‘Young, otherwise healthy women will sadly die unnecessarily because of these delays.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Pausing the adult national screening programmes, including the breast screening programme, was one of a series of difficult decisions we have had to make in responding to the impact of Covid-19.’
Scotland’s breast screening programme resumed on August 3rd.
The Covid backlog in Scotland before the breast screening programme restart was 77,660. That has led to an estimated 676 cases of breast cancer going undetected.