COMMENTARY

Colorectal cancer screening

A snapshot of colonoscopy practice in England: stimulus for improvement

K Palmer¹, A I Morris²

¹ British Society of Gastroenterology, London, UK
² Joint Advisory Group on Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr K R Palmer
Western General Hospital, Crewe Rd, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, UK; kpalmer@golf5063.freeserve.co.uk

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Colonoscopy practice in the UK today: are we adequately prepared for national colorectal cancer screening tomorrow?

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Keywords: colonoscopy; colonoscopy training; screening; colorectal cancer

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

In the West, 5% of individuals will at some time in their life develop colon cancer, and after the age of 54 years the risk lies between 1 in 19 to 1 in 22.¹² There is increasing pressure to develop colon screening programmes to identify early tumours and adenomatous polyps whose endoscopic removal has been shown to reduce cancer development.³⁴ Colon cancer screening is likely to be funded in England and in Scotland, and whether this is based on faecal occult blood testing,⁵⁶ flexible sigmoidoscopy,⁷ or colonoscopy alone,⁸⁹ and whether or not programmes will be targeted towards high risk groups or to all comers over a specific age, it is obvious that referrals for colonoscopy will increase. At the same time, there is increasing awareness among the general population and in primary care that rectal bleeding and altered bowel habit need investigation, ideally by colonoscopy. Most endoscopy . . . [Full text of this article]

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