Commentaries

Colorectal cancer screening

When even people at high risk do not take up colorectal cancer screening

Uri Ladabaum

Correspondence to:
Dr U Ladabaum, S-357, Box 0538, Division of Gastroenterology, University of California. 513 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, USA; uri.ladabaum@ucsf.edu

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Despite the most intense efforts by medical professionals, a significant fraction of people who we believe "should" be screened are not being screened

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Abbreviations: CRC, colorectal cancer; FOBT, fecal occult blood testing

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

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death in many parts of the world, including Europe, Australia and the USA. Screening is currently the most promising avenue to decrease the burden of CRC. The study in this issue of the journal by Bujanda et al (see page 1714)¹ serves as a sobering and instructive reminder of the challenges that many countries face in their efforts to establish CRC screening programmes, increase screening uptake and target higher-risk groups for more intense surveillance. Despite a dedicated effort to identify, contact and invite first-degree relatives of patients with CRC to undergo a colonoscopy free of charge (an effort that would be difficult to duplicate in many clinical settings), only 38% of these high-risk relatives who could be contacted agreed to undergo the procedure. What should we learn from this study, and in what context should we . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Boudreau, D. M., Koehler, E., Rulyak, S. J., Haneuse, S., Harrison, R., Mandelson, M. T. (2008). Cardiovascular Medication Use and Risk for Colorectal Cancer. Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev. 17: 3076-3080 [Abstract] [Full Text]