President Joe Biden’s announcement of renewed White House leadership of the Cancer Moonshot program, launched in 2016 with the goal of accelerating progress against cancer, shines a light on the importance of resuming cancer screenings that were missed due to the pandemic. Screening is particularly important for the underserved, who often lag behind, Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD, director of NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, tells Everyday Health.

“We know that cancer screenings save lives,” says Dr. Neel, who is a professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “The pandemic has caused people to defer important screenings such as mammography, colonoscopy, and, for smokers, lung CT scans. We are fearful that an epidemic of ‘upstaging’—detecting cancers later and in more dangerous form—awaits us.”

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