Authors' objectives: a) To assess the efficacy/effectiveness of CRC screening in asymptomatic first degree relatives of patients with adenomas or CRC, who do not fit the criteria of hereditary CRC (familial adenomatous polyposis and hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer) nor suffer inflammatory bowel disease.
b) To analyze the evidence about the use of genetic markers in CRC screening.

Authors' recommendations: We identified two systematic reviews, published in 1994 and 2001, about CRC screening in this high risk population but, due to limitations of these reviews, a new search withouttime limit was made. We did not find any clinical trial nor prospective study. Eight descriptive studies and two observational (cohort and case-control) were included. All selected studies used colonoscopy as the screening strategy and seven studies recommended this technique in our population; all the authors agreed about that screening must begin to earlier ages, suggesting an age limit of 40 years, but there was not consensus about the recurrence of the screening. However, three studies found that colonoscopy was not a good alternative in this high risk population. Therefore, there is little evidence on how to screen individuals with a family history of CRC and prospective studies should be made in order to answer these questions.We did not find published articles about genetic markers and CRC screening that fitted the inclusion criteria. For that reason, the most recent and relevant study results were reviewed. DNA fecal testing is potentially able to improve the principle characteristics of any screening test but, more prospective studies are necessary to prove the efficacy/effectiveness of molecular stool screening to reduce CRC incidence and mortality.

Project Status: Completed

Year Published: 2005

URL for published report: http://www.madrid.org/cs/Satellite?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobcol=urldata&blobkey=id&blobheadervalue1=filename%3DEficacia+del+cribado+CCR.pdf&blobwhere=1158607783787&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&ssbinary=true&blobheader=application%2Fpdf

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Spain

Organisation Name: Unidad de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias

Contact Address: Elena Andradas Aragones, Unidad de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias, Agencia Lain Entralgo, C/ Gran Via, 27, 8a, ES-28013 Madrid, Spain. Tel: +34 91 3089418; Fax: +34 91 3089458;

Contact Name: elena.andradas@salud.madrid.org

Contact Email: elena.andradas@salud.madrid.org

Copyright: <p>Unidad de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias (UETS)</p>