{"id":19240,"date":"2025-12-25T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T22:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/fecal-immunochemical-testing-for-colorectal-cancer-is-effective-and-cost-effective\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T22:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T22:44:11","slug":"fecal-immunochemical-testing-for-colorectal-cancer-is-effective-and-cost-effective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/?p=19240","title":{"rendered":"Fecal immunochemical testing for colorectal cancer is effective and cost-effective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The U.S. is one of only a few countries in the world that relies on colonoscopy as a primary method of screening for colorectal cancer (rather than reserving it for the evaluation of people who test positive on stool-based screenings). I recently wrote a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.medscape.com\/viewarticle\/fecal-immunochemical-testing-still-best-fit-patients-risk-2025a1000b85\">commentary in Medscape<\/a> about new evidence that supports a continued role for fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) as a colorectal cancer screening test. My article concluded:<\/p>\n<p><i>When reviewing colorectal cancer screening test choices with patients, family physicians can continue to recommend annual or biennial FIT as a comparable option to colonoscopy. If FIT is selected, we should provide a kit with liquid vial sample collection, if possible, and include a suggested return date in patient instructions. Finally, clinicians in leadership and population health management roles should advocate for cost-effective investments in patient navigation to enhance colorectal cancer screening and diagnostic colonoscopy completion rates, because these initiatives play a crucial role in preventing colorectal cancer deaths.<\/i><\/p>\n<div><i><br \/><\/i><\/div>\n<div>Exact Sciences, which sells a $600 stool-based screening test that combines FIT with a test for colorectal cancer DNA, would like physicians and patients to believe that its test (&#8220;Cologuard&#8221;) provides superior value to practices and health systems than FIT alone. But <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.acpjournals.org\/doi\/10.7326\/ANNALS-24-04026\">an analysis<\/a> published this week in the <i>Annals of Internal Medicine<\/i> indicates that it does not. Using data from the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMoa1311194\">original Cologuard diagnostic performance study<\/a> and a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMoa2310336\">study of a second-generation version<\/a> (Cologuard Plus), Dr. Hermann Brenner and colleagues at Heidelberg University in German showed that the cost per colorectal cancer detected is 7- to 9-fold higher for Cologuard and Cologuard Plus compared to FIT, depending on what percentage of patients undergo colonoscopy after a positive test result.<\/div>\n<div><i><br \/><\/i><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commonsensemd.blogspot.com\/2025\/05\/fecal-immunochemical-testing-for.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read full article at source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. is one of only a few countries in the world that relies on colonoscopy as a primary method of screening for colorectal cancer (rather than reserving it for the evaluation of people who test positive on stool-based screenings). I recently wrote a commentary in Medscape about new evidence that supports a continued role [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1747],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness-lifestyle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}