Reduced risk of emergency admission for colorectal cancer associated with the introduction of bowel cancer screening across England: a retrospective national cohort study

Abstract

The start-up of bowel cancer screening in England was associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of emergency admission for CRC in people of all ages. This suggests that the roll-out of the programme had indirect benefits beyond those related directly to participation in screening.

Colon and rectal cancer survival in seven high-income countries 2010–2014: variation by age and stage at diagnosis (the ICBP SURVMARK-2 project)

“…[22] Screening programs for CRC have furthermore been associated with a reduction in colon cancer cases diagnosed as an emergency. [23] Continuous monitoring and quality assurance of early detection and screening programs and detailed assessment of their impact on survival are therefore warranted. [24] Another phenomenon that has been proposed to explain differences in international stage distributions and stage-specific survival is stage migration.…”

Editorial

“…There is some evidence of reduced incidence associated with the introduction of population screening for bowel cancer. A large study [3] from England showed an adjusted odds ratio for emergency admission in patients diagnosed 6 months or more after commencement of screening was 0.83 (CI 0.76–0.90). Even with the improved accuracy offered by faecal immunochemical testing (FIT), the current approach misses cancers and contributes little to prevention.…”

Issue Information ‐ TOC

“…The effects of screening programmes have often been questioned; do patients attend, will it make us detect cancers earlier or even prevent cancer, will it prevent cancer specifi c deaths, and most of all will it also improve the overall mortality? [1] In this issue, Geraghty et al, performed an analysis of a national bowel cancer screening programme and looked to see if it could have an infl uence on the frequency of emergency admissions due to colorectal cancer [2]. Taking all patients with a new diagnosis of colorectal cancer in England during one year (n=27, 640) they and could show that the risk of being emergently admitted as an emergency had decreased from 6 months after the start-up of screening compared with patients not in a screening programme, adjusted odds ratio 0.83 (CI: 0.76-0.90).…”