ACS Screening Guideline Updates for Colorectal Cancer

Amber Draper, PharmD, BCOP, clinical pharmacist at Winship Cancer Institute, discussed the recent updates to the American Cancer Society's screening guidelines for colorectal cancer.

Transcript

Now we actually recommend, according to American Cancer Society (ACS), that screening should start at age of 45. So historically, it was always 50 years if you’re a normal-risk patient and normal risk you’d have no family history and no personal history and no other, you know, identifying risk factors. But more recently last summer, I believe it was in June, the ACS came out and said that we need to start screening patients earlier because again we’re noticing a trend that while in ages over 50 there’s a decline in colorectal cancer, in the age group between 30 and 49, the risk is actually increasing. And so they dropped the lower limit to 45 years of age to start screening. The NCCN guidelines have not updated to agree with that comment yet but I think that’s just a matter of time before they actually come out and also substantiate the screening recommendation for 45 years.