The impact of the pandemic on breast cancer screening in Brazil

Resumo

Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the screening of breast
cancer cases in Brazil. Methodology: This is an epidemiological, descriptive, quantitative, and comparative study.
The Department of Informatics of the Unified Health System (DATASUS) was used. Data from the Cancer Information
System — SISCAN (cervix and breast) were selected, in which the selected option was “mammography — by patients.”
The geographic coverage selected was “Brazil by region, state, and municipality.” The periods analyzed were from 2018 to
2022. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 in Brazil, the years 2018 and 2019 were analyzed as pre-pandemic,
2020 and 2021 as pandemic intervals, and 2022 as post-pandemic in order to compare the respective periods. Results: In
2018, 2,751,104 screening mammography exams were performed, of which 24,374 were BI-RADS 4, 5, or 6. In 2019, of the
3,303,248 exams, 29,645 were of the same classification; in 2020 (1,825,626), 21,464; in 2021 (2,623,895), 28,733; and in 2022
(3,222,436), 35,149. It is noted that there was a decrease in the number of mammograms during the pandemic period, but
with an increase in the number of BI-RADS of suspicious lesions, indicating prioritization of patients with risk factors.
In the year 2022, there were a greater number of exams and suspicious injury reports compared with the pre-pandemic
and pandemic periods. Conclusion: There was a reduction in the number of mammography exams during the pandemic,
contributing to time-consuming diagnoses and an increase in cases of advanced tumors in the immediate post-pandemic
period. Thus, the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on public health in Brazil is notorious.