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The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted gastroenterology services worldwide. As coronavirus infection rates rose, many professional bodies advised that all endoscopy, except emergency and essential procedures, be stopped immediately.1,2 Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy was considered a high-risk procedure due to a greater potential for aerosolization and transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.2 The resulting decline in endoscopic activity has been swift and profound. Markar et al3 demonstrated that by April 2020, activity was more than 90% lower than the previous year in 68% of health trusts in England, with an estimated 750 esophagogastric (EG) cancers undiagnosed.
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Turkington et al. (2021) studied this question.
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