| Theme |
Strategy of colon cancer screening |
| Title |
Mass screening for colorectal cancer using combination of fecal occult blood test and flexible sigmoidoscopy |
| Author |
Ryoichi Nozaki |
Coloproctology Center, Takano Hospital |
| Author |
Ryuji Murata |
Coloproctology Center, Takano Hospital |
| Author |
Syu Tanimura |
Coloproctology Center, Takano Hospital |
| Author |
Tomohisa Ohwan |
Coloproctology Center, Takano Hospital |
| Author |
Kazutaka Yamada |
Coloproctology Center, Takano Hospital |
| [ Summary ] |
Since 1983, we have been conducting mass screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) by combining the use of immunological fecal occult tests (IFOBT) and flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS). Over a three year period, from 2000 April to 2003 March, we detected 362 cases of CRC among 215,763 examinees using a screening test with a two-day IFOBT only. The detection rate was 0.17%. On the other hand, the frequency of CRC detected by FS in a total of 21,604 examinees with negative IFOBT was 0.17% (42 cases) early CRC 0.16% (39 cases) , advanced CRC 0.01% (3 cases). These results demonstrate that screening with 2-day IFOBT only, has the potential of overlooking significant numbers of CRC cases in the early curable stage. Therefore, the combined use of IFOBT and FS is thought to be an effective and useful screening method for CRC, not only in multiphasic health checkups or "human dry docks", but also in mass screening. This method is recommended as effective for primary screening of CRC because of the minimal pretreatment, required the simple technique and the hort procedure time. |