Additional benefit of surveillance

This week, Marjolein Greuter travelled to Vienna to present her work on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening at the United European Gastroenterology Week. Her presentation concerned the additional impact of surveillance in a CRC screening setting.

Aim of the study

To reduce the burden of CRC, several countries have implemented a screening programme, often in addition to an already existing surveillance programme. Although there is robust evidence that screening reduces CRC-related mortality, there is only limited evidence regarding the benefit of surveillance, especially in a screening setting. Therefore, in this study, we assessed the additional benefit of surveillance on top of screening.

Optical diagnosis

One of our collaborators, Jasper Vleugels, PhD student from the Amsterdam Medical Center, also presented in Vienna. He used our ASCCA model to evaluate an optical diagnosis strategy in a CRC screening programme.

Aim of the study

After a positive CRC screening test, diagnostic colonoscopy follows during which all detected CRC precursor lesions are removed and submitted for histopathological analyses. However, lesions < 5 mm rarely have malignant characteristics. Therefore, alternative strategies are considered such as optical diagnosis. In this strategy, the histology of colorectal lesions <5 mm is endoscopically assessed. When the endoscopist feels confident in his optical diagnosis, these lesions are discarded without histopathological analysis. This may result in considerable less histopathological analyses and thus, cost-savings.

The results of both studies will soon be submitted to an international scientific journal. Follow our website for updates.