Improving colonoscopy prioritisation and promoting the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program: keys to reducing bowel cancer burden

Paul Grogan; Emily He; Peter Pockney

doi:10.1071/phrp3312305

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Improving colonoscopy prioritisation and promoting the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program: keys to reducing bowel cancer burden

Paul Grogan ^A ^* , Emily He ^A and Peter Pockney ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A The Daffodil Centre, a joint venture between Cancer Council NSW and the University of Sydney, Australia

^B School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, College of Health, Medicine & Wellbeing University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

^* Correspondence to: Paul.Grogan@nswcc.org.au

Public Health Research and Practice 33, e3312305 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp3312305

Published: 15 March 2023

2023 © Grogan et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence, which allows others to redistribute, adapt and share this work non-commercially provided they attribute the work and any adapted version of it is distributed under the same Creative Commons licence terms.

Abstract

Australia’s National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) has the potential to prevent almost 84 000 bowel cancer deaths if 60% program participation rates could be reached and maintained over the next two decades. Immunochemical faecal occult blood test (iFOBT) is used as an initial screening tool. Participants who test positive are referred for colonoscopy for diagnostic assessment. Concerns about colonoscopy capacity and lengthy wait times between positive iFOBT and colonoscopy have hampered efforts to promote the program. However, a separate research paper published in this issue of PHRP shows that only an estimated 10–14% of Medicare-funded colonoscopies (almost 75% of all colonoscopies) in Australia are generated by the NBCSP. Inappropriate use of colonoscopy as a primary screening tool and failure to prioritise NBCSP participants may be the main reasons for long colonoscopy wait times associated with the program. Promoting clinical practice guidelines, and the Direct Access Colonoscopy initiative for priority patients, are key to reducing colonoscopy wait times and proactive promotion of the NBCSP.

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