Screening for colorectal cancer

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2207

Published 20 November 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2207
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2207

Editorials

Screening for colorectal cancer

Should be tailored to available resources, local experience,and population characteristics

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of death fromcancer in Europe and the United States.¹ ² Population screeningtrials using the guaiac faecal occult blood test have reducedmortality by around 16%.³ National or regional colorectal cancerscreening programmes and pilot studies for the general populationhave recently been introduced in more than 50 countries.⁴ Suchorganised screening programmes are the best way to reduce theincidence of colorectal cancer.

In the linked study (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2261), Malila and colleaguesreport the test, episode, and programme sensitivities for anew randomised method of introducing population screening forcolorectal cancer in 2004 in Finland.⁵ Test sensitivity refersto the proportion of colorectal cancer cases detected by thetest in the preclinical phase of the disease. Episode sensitivityis a function of test sensitivity (confirmed by diagnostic testing)that incorporates interval cancers not detected during the timebetween screening tests. . . . [Full text of this article]

Joan Austoker, director CRUK Primary Care Education Research Group¹, Paul Hewitson, senior research fellow²

¹ Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7DG, ² Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF

joan.austoker@ceu.ox.ac.uk

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Test, episode, and programme sensitivities of screening for colorectal cancer as a public health policy in Finland: experimental design: Nea Malila, Tiina Oivanen, Outi Malminiemi, and Matti Hakama
BMJ 2008 337: a2261. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]