At-home colon cancer screening compares well with colonoscopy

Researchers report that at-home colon cancer screening could reduce the risk of colorectal cancer death by 33%. The findings were published on July 19, 2024 in JAMA Network Open.

“The evidence shows that FIT [fecal immunochemical test] done every year is as good as getting a colonoscopy every 10 years for screening people of average risk. This study should give individuals and their clinicians the confidence to use this noninvasive test for screening and find ways to deploy these tests in underserved communities where colorectal cancer screening rates are very low,” said Chyke Doubeni, MD, MPH, senior author of the study. Doubeni serves as chief equity officer at the Wexner Medical Center and professor at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, both in Columbus, Ohio.

This new study was conducted in 2 large health systems and included subjects aged 52 to 85 years who died from colorectal adenocarcinoma between 2011 and 2017.

The investigators matched these subjects/cases in a 1:8 ratio based on age, sex, health-plan membership duration, and geographic area to randomly selected subjects who were alive and colorectal cancer free on the date of the case subject’s diagnosis.

The researchers evaluated data from 10,711 subjects who completed a FIT screening for colorectal cancer screening.

They reported that FIT screening lowered the risk of colorectal cancer-related death by 33%. They also found a 42% lower risk for cancers occurring on the left side of the colon inclusive of rectal cancers.

“Colorectal cancer screening works and is one of the best ways of decreasing deaths from colorectal cancer,” said Douglas Corley, MD, PhD, a co-principal investigator and the chief research officer from Kaiser Permanente, Northern California. “This study, of at least one FIT screening in the last few years, confirms this method is an effective tool.”

The authors concluded, “In this nested case-control study, completing FIT was associated with a lower risk of overall death from CRC, particularly in the left colon, and the associations were observed across racial and ethnic groups. These findings support the use of FIT in population-based screening strategies.”