Screening Strategies for Colorectal Cancer

Transanal endoscopic microsurgery in early rectal cancer: time for a trial?

“…A recent review summarized CT, EUS and MRI staging accuracy in rectal cancer at 52–74%, 71–91% and 69–97% respectively [44,45]. The poor accuracy leads to problems in case selection.…”

Detection of colorectal neoplasia with peanut-agglutinin(PNA)-reactive carbohydrate structures in rectal mucus

“…The potential use of carbohydrate alterations in rectal mucus as a screening method for colorectal carcinoma remains to be investi-gated by more discriminate carbohydrate probes. Nevertheless, the sensitivity (76%) of a single PNA test as such seems to be equal to that of serial FOBT (48-88%) in colorectal carcinoma (Hardcastle and Pye, 1989;Solomon and McLeod, 1993), whereas a single FOBT is reported to detect only 50% of colorectal carcinomas (Hardcastle and Pye, 1989). The specificity of 76% for colorectal neoplasia achieved in this study is inferior to that of 71 to 100% found in studies based on the galactose-oxidase Schiff method, and where colonoscopy was not invariably used as a control method (Shamsuddin and Elsayed, 1988;Sakamoto et al, 1993;Zhou et al, 1993;Shamsuddin and Sakamoto, 1994).…”

The Utility of Flexible Sigmoidoscopy as a Screening Tool for Colon Cancer

“…Colorectal cancer (CRC) afflicts approximately 140,000 people annually in the United States, with fewer than half of the cancers being detected at an early stage when the rate of cure with surgery and adjunctive chemotherapy and radiation treatments is highest (Solomon & McLeod, 1993). CRC is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States and it comprised more than 15% of all cancercare expenditures in the Medicare program between 1974 and 1981 (Byers & Gorsky, 1992).…”