Primary-care physicians are too lax in prescribing colorectal cancer screening for patients.
That's the finding of a study done jointly by UC Davis, the University of Washington and Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, and published in the February issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.
The study reviewed cases of 50,000 patients, age 50 to 78, who belonged to the Group Health Cooperative insurance plan in Washington state. It found that more than half of patients with frequent primary care visits -- four or more per year -- did not get screened. Primary-care physicians normally recommend screening.
"Colorectal cancer screening is not on the primary care agenda as much as it should be," lead author Joshua Fenton, assistant professor of family and community medicine at UC Davism said in a press release. "Merely encouraging people to see their doctors won't increase screening...We have to do more to make sure that eligible patients are identified during primary care visits and counseled about options."
Government figures show that 49,960 died of colon and rectal cancer in 2008.
