Towards risk-stratified colorectal cancer screening. Adding risk factors to the fecal immunochemical test: Evidence, evolution and expectations

Abstract

With increasing incidence and mortality, colorectal cancer (CRC) is a growing health problem worldwide. An effective way to address CRC is by screening for fecal (occult) blood by the fecal immunochemical test (FIT). However, there is room for improvement since precursor lesions and CRC bleed intermittent and can therefore be missed by the FIT (false negatives) or, the detected blood did not result from precursor lesions or CRC (false positives). This review provides the latest evidence on risk prediction models using FIT combined with additional risk factors before colonoscopy, which risk factors to include and if these models will better discriminate between normal findings and CRC compared to the FIT-only. Many prediction models are known for CRC, but compared to the FIT, these are less effective in detecting CRC. The literature search resulted in 645 titles where 11 papers matched the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. Comparing the FIT-only with the risk prediction models for detecting CRC resulted in a significantly increased discrimination for the models. In addition, 2 different risk-stratification categories before colonoscopy were distinguished, namely the 1-model approach which combined risk factors with FIT results in a prediction model while the 2 step approach used risk factors apart from the FIT. Finally, combining FIT with CRC risk factors by means of a model before colonoscopy seems effective regarding discriminative power, however, more research is needed for validation combined with transparent and standardized reporting to improve quality assessment, for which suggestions are reported in this study.

Keywords: Colorectal neoplasms; Early detection of cancer; Epidemiological methods; Occult blood; Public health; Risk factors.