Cancer screening

This is the first report from an Australian-first project combining data from the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, BreastScreen Australia, and the National Cervical Screening Program. It was found that screen-detected breast, cervical and bowel cancers were less likely to cause death than non-screen-detected cancers, with analyses also revealing novel patterns in screening behaviour.

This report looks at the impact of COVID-19 on cancer screening in 2020, by presenting the number of screens between January and September 2020, and how these compare to the number of screens over the same period in the previous comparable year. The impact of COVID-19 was clearest for BreastScreen Australia which experienced a drop in screening mammograms in April 2020 due to a suspension of BreastScreen services. Since then the number of screening mammograms has increased each month.

COVID-19
This release includes data from the COVID-19 period.