FRIDAY, Dec. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Colorectal cancer screening in an Italian region starting in the 1980s was associated with a drop in colorectal cancer mortality, according to research published in the Dec. 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Adele Seniori Costantini, M.D., of the ISPO Cancer Prevention and Research Institute in Florence, Italy, and colleagues analyzed colorectal cancer mortality rates from 1985 to 2006 in different parts of the Tuscany region. The Empolese-Mugello district began population-based colorectal cancer screening in the early 1980s, and the rest of the provinces of Florence and Prato began in 2000.
The investigators found that the Empolese-Mugello district had a larger decrease in colorectal cancer mortality than the rest of the area (estimated 2.7 percent annual decrease in age-adjusted colorectal cancer mortality versus 1.3 percent annual decrease, respectively). Roughly 17,500 were tested annually in the Empolese-Mugello district since the early 1980s, and roughly 38,000 were tested annually in the other areas starting in 2000.
"The fact that we observed no difference between the Empolese-Mugello district and the rest of the Florence and Prato provinces in the overall cancer mortality rate suggests that these areas did not differ with respect to access to health services and quality of care," the authors write. "The Empolese-Mugello district and the rest of the Florence and Prato provinces had similar patterns of increasing colorectal cancer incidence. In our opinion, this observation indicates that the observed mortality reduction was not due to differing trends in incidence."
Abstract
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