The Impact Of Sars-Cov-2 On The Irish National Colorectal Cancer Screening Programme: A Report From Two High-Volume Endoscopy Centres

Aims The Irish National BowelScreen programme paused activities in March 2020 to prioritise the emergency response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As a result, patients with positive fecal immunochemical test (FIT) results that had already been returned, experienced delays in time to colonoscopy. The standard lead time in BowelScreen is 20 working days. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of this delay on time to colonoscopy for index FIT positive cases in two tertiary endoscopy units.