BIRMINGHAM—Research conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as part of a national study reveals that flexible sigmoidoscopy—a screening test for colorectal cancer that is less invasive and has fewer side-effects than colonoscopy—reduces deaths due to colorectal cancer.
Overall, colorectal cancer deaths were reduced 26 percent and new cases were reduced 21 percent as a result of screening with sigmoidoscopy, according to findings of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial that appeared online May 21, 2012, in the New England Journal of Medicine.
As part of the PLCO trial, a population-based, randomized study funded by the National Cancer Institute, a total 154,900 men and women ages 55-74 were randomly assigned to receive flexible sigmoidoscopy screening (intervention group) or usual care (control group) between 1993 and 2001. Control group participants were screened only if they asked for it or if their physician recommended it. Members of the intervention group were screened upon entering the study to collect a baseline measure and again three to five years later. All participants were followed for approximately 12 years.
UAB enrolled more than 6,000 participants. Compliance was one of the highest among all 10 sites—96 percent at baseline and 75 percent at five years.
“This trial allowed us to identify an evidence-based screening tool other than colonoscopy to reduce the number of new cases and deaths from colorectal cancer. This finding is important because not all individuals have access to colonoscopy, which is more expensive and has to be performed by specialty physicians," said Mona Fouad, MD, MPH, principal investigator of the UAB PLCO site, director of the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine and co-leader of the Cancer Control and Populations Sciences program at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
