Take action now: Get a colorectal screening

Part two of an article published by AARP on preventative health measures.  Have you gotten a colorectal screening lately?

Only about 60 percent of people age 50 and over are regularly screened for colorectal cancer. Dr. Steven Simon led a team from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School that tested an automated telephone outreach system designed to encourage people over 50 to contact their primary-care providers to schedule screening. They randomly assigned half of almost 21,000 members of Massachusetts-based Harvard Pilgrim to receive a single phone call in addition to the usual doctor’s advice during routine visits. The phone system used voice recognition software to tailor its information to patients’ responses about previous screening, family history, or concerns about discomfort.

After one year, the researchers looked at how many people had one of four screening tests: fecal occult blood testing, double-contrast barium enema, flexible sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy. After two years, they tracked who had colonoscopies. They found no significant differences among the two groups: Three out of 10 patients in each group had some kind of screening. Slightly more people - just over 2 out of 10 - in the telephone outreach group had colonoscopies in the second year than in the usual care group, but the difference was not statistically significant.

“Colorectal cancer screening may be among a set of challenging conditions that are resistant to this type of intervention,’’ the researchers said.

BOTTOM LINE: An automated telephone outreach system did not improve rates of colorectal cancer screening.

CAUTIONS: The telephone outreach system successfully contacted only 61 percent of eligible patients, so results might have been different if more patients had been reached.

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