ASGE Annual Postgraduate Course: Clinical Challenges and Real-Time Decision Making in GI Endoscopy (Live and Virtual) | May 2023-Promoting Colonoscopy to Referring Networks and Patients

Video Transcription

To echo what Dr. Sahni had said, the perspective that I've been taking as a participant on  this panel is to try to create materials that allow we as gastroenterologists, us as gastroenterologists  to go to the community, whether it's our primary care community or to share best practices with our GI colleagues.  So a lot of this is going to be focused on how to deliver messages to our patients and  our primary care community so that information is appropriately then disseminated to the patients that they serve. So needless to say, colon cancer is common and deadly.  We know that. We've heard that. We're seeing it rise in younger patients. We stress, but I think as a community, we don't stress nearly enough that colon cancer  is nearly entirely preventable with a high quality colonoscopy. And we are faced with the concerns that nearly 50% of our population that's eligible for  screening is not getting screened. As Dr. Sahni echoed, any screening is better than no screening.  But we do have opportunities to stress that colonoscopy remains the only test that prevents cancer of the entire colon.  And that's one of the posts that the ASGE recently put on their social media pages, that we have the opportunity to prevent colon cancer.  And using the Multi-Society Task Force recommendations, we then have the opportunity to offer FIT  testing every year, followed by FIT-Fecal DNA testing, more commonly known as COLAGARD. And what we'll see here in subsequent slides is that there's been certainly an increased  use of various types of noninvasive stool testing, including FIT-Fecal DNA. And as we'll see through some studies that have come out recently, there unfortunately  has been some inappropriate use of FIT-Fecal DNA in the community. So to build on what we've seen already, these are some of the materials that we provide  to our patients in various forms. We'll add our logo and do some co-branding, but when patients are asking about various  types of screening and prevention methods, this is what we provide them.

Video Summary

In this video, the panelist discusses the importance of creating materials to educate gastroenterologists and the primary care community on colon cancer prevention. They emphasize that colon cancer is prevalent and deadly, especially among younger patients, but it is highly preventable with high-quality colonoscopies. However, approximately 50% of the eligible population is not getting screened. The panelist suggests that any form of screening is better than none, but emphasizes that colonoscopies remain the only test that can prevent cancer throughout the entire colon. They also mention the use of non-invasive stool testing options like FIT-Fecal DNA, but caution against inappropriate usage. The video concludes by mentioning the materials provided to patients for screening and prevention methods. No credits are mentioned.

Keywords

colon cancer prevention

high-quality colonoscopies

prevalence of colon cancer

screening for colon cancer

FIT-Fecal DNA