Rate of Colorectal Cancer Screenings Up
Posted on: Tuesday, 14 November 2006, 15:00 CST
The rate of colorectal cancer screening appears to be increasing among U.S. Veterans Affairs patients, although use of colonoscopy is less common.
Dr. Hashem B. El-Serag of the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston studied screening patterns in patients who received care in the Department of Veterans Affairs between 1998 and 2003.
The researchers identified all patients ages 49 to 75 who had undergone a fecal occult blood test, colonoscopy, a flexible sigmoidoscopy or double contrast barium enema, another screening method that involves taking X-rays of the colon and rectum.
More than 5 million screening tests for colorectal cancer were performed on 2.4 million patients between 1998 and 2003 -- an average of 2.1 procedures per patient.
The number of tests increased from 432,778 in 1998 to 1,179,764 in 2003.
Also in that time period, the proportion of FOBT tests increased from 81.7 percent to 90.4 percent; screening colonoscopy declined from 5.7 percent to 4.7 percent; flexible sigmoidoscopy declined from 8.3 percent to 3.6 percent; and double contrast barium enema declined from 4.1 percent to 1.3 percent, according to the study published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Source: United Press International
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