Breast cancer screening resumes

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 62, No. 6, July August 2020, Pages 209-210 News COVID-19

The BC Cancer Breast Screening Program resumed screening mammography services in select screening centre sites in June. The introduction of screening mammography occurred in a measured, phased approach, with each site working with downstream diagnostic services to ensure there is capacity for follow-up procedures, as well as sufficient personal protective equipment on hand before resuming services. It is anticipated that all sites, including three mobile screening units, will be screening again in July. This measured approach is to ensure that patient anxiety due to abnormal screening results is minimized, and to provide a safe environment for cancer screening to occur.

  • Hand hygiene: Hand sanitizer and/or hand-washing stations are available at all screening sites to support good hand hygiene.
  • Physical distancing: Breast screening centres have rearranged their waiting areas and allow more time between patients to support physical distancing. Unscheduled walk-in appointments will not be accommodated at this time.
  • Enhanced cleaning: Mammography equipment and exam rooms are frequently cleaned and sanitized in accordance with provincial guidelines.
  • Personal protective equipment: Screening staff wear personal protective equipment including surgical masks, appropriate eye protection, and gloves to protect themselves and others.
  • COVID-19 screening: Patients are screened for COVID-19 symptoms at the entrance to the building or facility.

The Breast Screening Program has been contacting patients on existing wait lists and those whose previous appointments were canceled due to COVID-19 to book a new appointment.

Breast screening was temporarily suspended in March to support physical distancing measures and to assist in efforts to minimize COVID-19 transmission in the community. A temporary suspension in screening services allowed hospitals to redeploy and train essential health care workers in the likelihood of a potential surge in COVID-19 patients requiring acute care. For more information, visit www.screeningbc.ca/breast.

. Breast cancer screening resumes. BCMJ, Vol. 62, No. 6, July, August, 2020, Page(s) 209-210 - News, COVID-19.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

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