Population screening backlog accumulated in 2021

Compared to the first crown year 2020, more than 1.3 million more people received an invitation for a population screening for colon cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer in 2021. This is evident from the annual monitoring. of the RIVM. The backlog accumulated during the corona pandemic, caused by the temporary cessation of investigations in 2020, has thus been recovered. Participation in population screenings also increased again, although it was still lower than before the crown period. The RIVM reports it.

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In 2021, 2.3 million people were invited to the bowel cancer screening program. In 2020, there were still 1.8 million people. In 2021, more than 1.6 million (more than 70%) of people participated. Of these, 4.6% had an unfavorable stool test result. Colon cancer or an advanced polyp was eventually found in nearly 20,000 people.

breast cancer

In 2021, 1.2 million people received an invitation for the breast cancer screening program. 72.5 percent of them participated. The percentage of participants referred to for further research was 2.6%. The number of invitations was significantly higher in 2021 than in 2020. More than 750,000 invitations were sent at that time. However, the number of invitations is not yet at the old level. This is not only due to the corona pandemic, but also the lack of screening laboratories.

cervical cancer

To make up for the shortage in 2020, around 200,000 additional invitations were sent out in 2021 to screen the cervical cancer population. In total, there were more than 1 million invitations in 2021. The backlog was thus fully recovered. Furthermore, the percentage of participants who were smeared by their GP in 2021 was 42.7%. For the autosampling kit this was 12.1%, in 2020 it was still 8.1%. Cervical cancer or an early stage of it was eventually found in more than 6,200 people.

Edited by: National Care Guide

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