Doctors at UVA Health and the Central Virginia Health Services are trying to get their patients caught up on cancer screenings that were canceled or missed during the pandemic. WMRA’s Randi B. Hagi reports.
The pandemic’s burden on our health system has meant that a lot of non-emergency procedures, such as cancer screenings, were delayed – for some people, indefinitely.
CINDY YOSHIDA: So, across the country, when COVID shut down the hospital systems all over, we did see a marked decline in screenings of all types.
Dr. Cindy Yoshida leads the colonoscopy program at UVA Health.
YOSHIDA: And when we talk about colorectal screening, in that period between March and June of 2020, we saw a 90% decline in all of colorectal cancer screening. And it’s really predicted – a number of people have done some modeling studies – that that even short period of time that we cut back on screening is going to lead to thousands more colon cancers over the next decade. Read More >