ArticleJRSM open2026
Effect of COVID-19 NHS breast screening pause on breast cancer presentation and management: an insight into overdiagnosis.
Article in JRSM open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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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.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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Abstract
Objective: To ascertain the impact of a 3-month pause in the NHS Breast Screening Programme (NHSBSP) during COVID-19 on numbers, characteristics and outcomes of breast cancer patients. Design: We compared numbers, referral sources (NHSBSP/GP), tumour characteristics, treatments, and survival before and during COVID-19 using chi-square tests and Kaplan-Meier estimates. Patients were grouped into: (a) all cases from 2019 to 2021 ( Setting: The study was conducted with the breast units of two large London NHS hospitals as a local audit to understand the impact of COVID-19 on breast cancer management. Participants: Patients diagnosed with breast cancer from 2019 to 2021 were analysed. Main outcome measures: Temporal variation in the number of breast cancer cases by referral source and the impact of the pause in screening mammography due to the COVID-19 pandemic on changes in tumour characteristics, treatments and survival. Results: Overall, there were 31% fewer patients in 2020 vs. 2019 (886 vs. 1281, Conclusions: During the COVID-19-induced NHSBSP pause, good-prognosis (grade 1) cancers reduced without an increase in larger, or node-positive cancers, or more extensive surgery, and 3-year survival remained unchanged, suggesting that pausing NHSBSP may have avoided overdiagnosis without causing harm.
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