Colorectal Cancer Awareness

In this video series, Folasade P. May, MD, PhD, MPhil, spoke with Healio about screening options for colorectal cancer, how awareness could help improve screening rates and other ways to increase the CRC screening rate to 80%.

May, director of quality improvement in gastroenterology at UCLA Health, a health services researcher with the UCLA Center for Cancer Prevention Control Research (CPCR) and UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity, co-director of the Global Health Education Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and director of May Laboratory, also discussed:

• “suboptimal” screening rates for CRC in the United States;
• changes to the CRC screening landscape over the first two years of the pandemic;
• the benefits of noninvasive screening options, noting that clinicians and patients must be aware that it is a two-step process: If a stool-based test comes back with abnormal results, a colonoscopy is mandated;
• risk factors to be considered when screening patients for CRC, including personal or familial history of colorectal polyps, adenomas or CRC;
• the role of genetic testing;
• co-management among the primary care provider, gastroenterologist, oncologist, surgeon and radiation oncologist;
• what to know about survivorship and the role of gastroenterologists in the surveillance of recurrence;
• how the 5-year survival rate for patients with stage one CRC, which is 90%, demonstrates why screening is so crucial;
• the trend of higher rates of CRC incidence and mortality among African American and Native American/Alaskan Native populations; and
• a new policy statement from the Biden administration.