The updated national colorectal cancer screening guidelines that recommend screening begin at age 45 -; rather than 50 -; can benefit younger adults, a new Kaiser Permanente study found. The study, published October 22 in Annals of Internal Medicine , included more than 267,000 Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California, Washington, and Colorado ages 45 to 50 who received their first invitation for colorectal cancer screening along with a fecal immunochemical test (FIT) kit between January and September 2022. The U.
S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered the age to start screening in response to studies showing an increased rate of colorectal cancer in adults ages 45 to 49. However, the change was based entirely on simulation modeling.
We decided to collect real-world data on what happened when we began sending FIT kits to Kaiser Permanente members ages 45 to 49." Theodore R. Levin, MD, co-first author, research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research (DOR) and a gastroenterologist with The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) Overall, close to 39% of adults ages 45 to 49 returned their FIT kit, compared with nearly 38% of adults aged 50.
In the 45 to 49 age group, 3.6% of the adults had a positive result compared with 4% of the adults in the age 50 group. In both groups, about two-thirds of the adults who had a positive FIT test went on to have a colonoscopy within 90 days of receiving the test result.
Polyp detection during the colonoscopy was slightly lo.