ArticleJournal of medical screening2022
Recovery of the breast screening programme following pandemic-related delays: Should we focus on round length or uptake?
Article in Journal of medical screening, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The effect of different combinations of open invitations and timed appointments on breast screening attendance: service evaluation of invitation strategies in the NHS Breast Screening Programme.British journal of cancer · 2026Trial
- Evolving attitudes towards cancer screening: a 2024 update of UK population views.British journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Examining the impact of COVID-19 disruptions on population-based breast cancer screening in Ireland.Journal of medical screening · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe NHS Breast Screening programme is recovering from the hiatus in screening in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, open rather than timed invitations are issued, which leads to lower uptake but more rapid coverage of the eligible population by invitation and therefore closer adherence to a round length of 3 years. We aimed to estimate the likely effect on numbers of cancers detected at incident screens of a range of round lengths and uptake rates.
methodsWe assumed exponential distributions of time to incidence of preclinical screen-detectable cancer and of time to progression thereafter to symptomatic clinical disease. We derived numerical values of these, along with screening sensitivity, from published research results and statistics from the NHS Breast Screening programme. These were used to calculate numbers of cancers detected at incident screens at ages 51-70 by round length and uptake rates.
resultsWe found that in a homogeneous population of cancers, a 4-year round length with uptake of 62%, as observed with timed appointments in London before the pandemic, would result in 295 cancers screen detected per 10,000 invited, compared to 222 cancers with a 3-year round and uptake of 46%, as observed in London during the recovery period. Similar results were found when we posited two populations, one of rapidly progressing and one of slowly progressing cancers.
conclusionsIt may be more productive in terms of early detection to focus on uptake rather than round length in the programme's recovery from the pandemic.
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