Screening is an assessment to “identify apparently healthy people who are at increased risk of a disease or health condition. It is aimed to identify people who would be benefited from further assessment. Screening in clinical practice is about case finding where the physician takes opportunity to request for a screening test that is more likely to result in follow-up as compared to mass screening. Screening should be on a defined target population and in the presence of scientific evidence on the effectiveness of the screening test. In addition, the overall benefits of screening should outweigh harms.

Colo-rectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, with more than 1.3 million (9.7%) new cancer cases and 693,881 (8.5%) cancer mortalities. The physician at the clinic I attend uses and follows the colo-rectal screening guidelines in all of his patients that are of age. Patient education is given on the risks and risk factors and the reasons why screening is so important. He typically writes his patients a referral for a colonoscopy and then tells them to follow up with results following the procedure. For those patients that aren’t up for going out to have the procedure performed he recommends the Colo-Guard kit, this kit allows them to give a sample from the comforts of their own, all that is required is mailing the specimen off. These guidelines were accessed by using evidence-based research sites. I find these sites helpful currently because I can apply what I read into my clinical setting.

Reference

Whitlock EP, Lin J, Liles E. et al. Screening for Colorectal Cancer: An Updated Systematic Review. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US), 2008. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK35179/.Accessed on September 20, 2014. [Google Scholar]