Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Encouraging people to get colorectal cancer screenings can be difficult, even though early detection can often lead to a cure. “It is one of the most feared of all illnesses and people … don’t want to know about it if they don’t have to,” Dr. Taina Taskila of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom told Reuters Health. Dr. Taskila and a team of researchers from the university conducted a study to find out who is most likely to opt out of colorectal screenings and what can be done to change attitudes about the potentially life-saving procedure.

The research sprang from a national program launched in the UK in 2006 to screen all men and women ages 60-69 with a fecal occult blood test (FOBT), a test to identify blood in the stool. Researchers found that less than 60 percent of eligible people were being tested.

To determine one’s attitude toward colorectal screenings, the researchers asked more than 11,000 people their impressions of FOBT, colonoscopies and whether they were exhibiting any symptoms of colorectal cancer. What they found was that 14 percent of the people reacted negatively about colorectal cancer screenings in general. Thirteen percent said the FOBT was “unacceptable” and 55 percent said colonoscopies were just as bad. Those who were most turned off by the procedures were men, older people and people of South Asian decent.

Those with the best attitudes about colorectal screenings were those who suffered from at least three symptoms usually associated with colorectal cancer and those of Black Caribbean decent.

The survey results pave the way for “culturally relevant screening strategies” to be developed,  Dr. Taskila said.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 11:49 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.