Predicting the presence of colon cancer in members of a health maintenance organisation by evaluating analytes from standard laboratory records.

BACKGROUND: A valid risk prediction model for colorectal cancer (CRC) could be used to identify individuals in the population who would most benefit from CRC screening. We evaluated the potential for information derived from a panel of blood tests to predict a diagnosis of CRC from 1 month to 3 years in the future.

METHODS: We abstracted information on 1755 CRC cases and 54 730 matched cancer-free controls who had one or more blood tests recorded in the electronic records of Maccabi Health Services (MHS) during the period 30-180 days before diagnosis. A scoring model (CRC score) was constructed using the study subjects' blood test results. We calculated the odds ratio for being diagnosed with CRC after the date of blood draw, according to CRC score and time from blood draw.

RESULTS: The odds ratio for having CRC detected within 6 months for those with a score of four or greater (vs three or less) was 7.3 (95% CI: 6.3-8.5) for men and was 7.8 (95% CI: 6.7-9.1) for women.

CONCLUSIONS: Information taken from routine blood tests can be used to predict the risk of being diagnosed with CRC in the near future.