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Colorectal Cancer screening rates still too low
Newswise — Although
colorectal cancer screening tests are proven
to reduce colorectal cancer mortality, only
about half of U.S. men and women 50 and
older receive the recommended tests,
according to a report in the July 2008 issue
of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and
Prevention, a journal of the American
Association for Cancer Research.
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention conducted a National
Health Interview Survey and found only 50
percent of men and women 50 and older had
received screening in 2005.
Although this was an
improvement over the 43 percent of screened
individuals reported in 2000, it is still
far from optimal, investigators say.
“Colorectal cancer is one of
the leading cancer killers in the United
States, behind only lung cancer. Screening
has been shown to significantly reduce
mortality from colorectal cancer, but a lot
of people are still not getting screened,”
said Jean A. Shapiro, Ph.D., an
epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).
Shapiro says a major problem
appears to be insurance coverage.
Among people without health
insurance, researchers found the rate of
colorectal cancer screening was 24.1 percent
compared to over 50 percent of insured
Americans, depending on the type of
insurance.
Among patients without a
usual source of health care, the screening
rate was 24.7 percent compared to 51.9
percent of patients with a usual source of
health care.
“If we can increase the
number of people who have health care
coverage, we should be able to increase
colorectal cancer screening rates,” said
Shapiro.
Shapiro says the increase in
colorectal cancer screening rates observed
from 2000 to 2005 may have been due in part
to increased media coverage of the
importance of colonoscopy as a measure to
prevent cancer and detect it early,
including a broadcast of Katie Couric, then
co-host of NBC’s Today show, undergoing a
colonoscopy.
However, Shapiro adds, the
increase was probably also due to the fact
that in 2001, Medicare expanded its coverage
for colonoscopy screenings to a wider range
of patients.
“Health care access and
insurance are important,” Shapiro said.
Beyond health insurance, researchers at the
CDC reported the following factors
influenced the use of colorectal cancer
screening tests:
• Education: 37 percent of
people with less than a high school
education received screening vs. 60.7
percent of college graduates.
• Household income: 37.4 percent of people
earning less than $20,000 in annual
household income received screening vs. 58.5
percent of people earning $75,000 or more.
• Frequency of physician contact: 19.5
percent of patients who had not seen a
physician in the past year had received
screening vs. 52.5 percent of patients who
had seen their physician two to five times
in the previous year.
Approximately 50 percent of patients who did
not receive testing said they had “never
thought about it,” while about 20 percent
said their “doctor did not order it,”
researchers found.
“Many doctors are aware, but
some may still need to be educated about the
importance of colorectal cancer screening,”
said Shapiro.
These data were derived from
the CDC’s 2005 National Health Interview
Survey which interviewed 30,873 adults in a
demographically representative sample of
Americans.
Interviews were conducted in
person with a 68 percent response rate. For
the current analysis, Shapiro and colleagues
focused on 13,480 patients who were age 50
and older.
The mission of the American
Association for Cancer Research is to
prevent and cure cancer.
Founded in 1907, AACR is the
world’s oldest and largest professional
organization dedicated to advancing cancer
research.
The membership includes more
than 28,000 basic, translational and
clinical researchers; health care
professionals; and cancer survivors and
advocates in the United States and 80 other
countries.
AACR marshals the full
spectrum of expertise from the cancer
community to accelerate progress in the
prevention, diagnosis and treatment of
cancer through high-quality scientific and
educational programs.
It funds innovative,
meritorious research grants. The AACR Annual
Meeting attracts more than 17,000
participants who share the latest
discoveries and developments in the field.
Special conferences
throughout the year present novel data
across a wide variety of topics in cancer
research, treatment and patient care. AACR
publishes five major peer-reviewed journals:
Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research;
Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular
Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology,
Biomarkers & Prevention.
Its most recent publication
and its sixth major journal, Cancer
Prevention Research, is dedicated
exclusively to cancer prevention, from
preclinical research to clinical trials.
The AACR also publishes CR, a
magazine for cancer survivors and their
families, patient advocates, physicians and
scientists.
CR provides a forum for
sharing essential, evidence-based
information and perspectives on progress in
cancer research, survivorship and advocacy.
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