A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine affirmed the effectiveness of current colorectal cancer guidelines which recommend patients undergo a colonoscopy every 10 years.
Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study of 1,251,318 patients at a healthcare delivery organization in Northern California. They examined patients with a negative colonoscopy for 12 years, having the patients undergo another colonoscopy 10 years after their first; about 613,692 participants were men with a mean age was 55.6.
Here's what they found:
1. Negative colonoscopy patients had reduced CRC risk through the 12-year follow-up period.
2. These patients had a 46 percent lower risk of getting CRC and an 88 percent lower risk of CRC-related death when they were rescreened at the recommended 10-year interval.
3. Researchers concluded, "A negative colonoscopy result in average-risk patients was associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer and related deaths for more than 12 years after examination, compared with unscreened patients. Our study findings may be able to inform guidelines for rescreening after a negative colonoscopy result and future studies to evaluate the costs and benefits of earlier versus later rescreening intervals."