USPSTF colorectal cancer screening guidelines: an extended look at multi-year interval testing.

OBJECTIVES: The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) released draft recommendations regarding colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in October 2015. Despite evidence that annual fecal blood testing test use is uncommon in screen eligible adults, with only 10.4% reporting the use of such a test in 2012, and features poor adherence over time, the USPSTF recommended only 3 noninvasive screening strategy options, all including annual fecal occult blood testing: 1) annual fecal immunochemical test (FIT) alone; 2) annual FIT in combination with flexible sigmoidoscopy every 10 years; and 3) annual high-sensitivity fecal occult blood test (hsFOBT). Mt-sDNA is the only FDA-approved CRC screening test, is covered by Medicare every 3 years, and is included as an every-3-year (3y) option in the American Cancer Society guidelines. We demonstrate that USPSTF modeling includes an embedded sensitivity analysis of less frequent than annual test adherence, which provides support for the inclusion of mt-sDNA 3y as a recommended test.

STUDY DESIGN: A descriptive analysis of USPSTF modeling of the clinical impact of various stool based CRC screening strategies.

METHODS: We analyzed the data generated by the USPSTF CRC screening models describing the impact of noninvasive CRC screening strategies on CRC incidence, CRC related mortality, life years gained (LYG), colonoscopy volume and associated complication, test efficiency (a measure of benefits (LYG) and harms (colonoscopies generated), and identified strategies that provide 90% or more of the LYG by screening with colonoscopy every 10 years. We compared mt-sDNA at 3y intervals and FIT and hsFOBT at 2-year (2y) and 3y intervals and did not consider annual testing.

RESULTS: We found that only mt-sDNA 3y, FIT 2y, and FIT 3y were within 98% of the efficiency frontier. However, only mt-sDNA 3y generates more than 90% of the life-years gained with screening colonoscopy. These results meet the USPSTF criteria for a recommendation for mt-sDNA 3y for routine screening.

CONCLUSIONS: Given poor adherence to annual testing, any screening opportunity with a test, such as mt-sDNA, that has high sensitivity for CRC and for the most significant precancerous lesions would be an important screening option for patients for maximizing screening effectiveness in reducing CRC incidence and mortality.