The “world’s leading” breast cancer nonprofit is urging both radiologists and women to delay routine imaging screenings until later this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Susan G. Komen said its suggestion applies to healthy women of average risk for the disease and is aimed at minimizing exposure while freeing up “needed health capacity to deal with COVID-19.” Officials stressed that those who display warning signs of breast cancer should still contact their local clinician.
“Now is the time for doctors to delay routine screenings for healthy people who are not displaying warning signs of breast cancer,” Komen’s Chief Scientific Advisor George Sledge Jr. MD, a professor of medicine, and chief of the Division of Oncology at Stanford University, said in a statement. “This also means it is critically important for people to know what is normal for them, and to report to their health care provider any changes so that necessary care can be provided.”
The call for delays in such nonurgent screenings follow similar proclamations from the CDC and American College of Radiology earlier this week.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.