Colon Cancer Screening and the End of Life: Is Age Just a Number?

Abstract

Age is the strongest risk factor for colorectal cancer. Although there is updated guidance for the age at which to start screening, there is little guidance for individuals or their medical teams on how to decide when to stop. Current recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force and other societies focus primarily on age. For patients older than 85 years, guidelines discourage screening because the harms largely outweigh benefits. Although at a population level, the overall benefit of screening in older individuals decreases, one must individualize the recommendation based on comorbidities, functional status, screening history, and gender—not solely base it on age. Patient and caregiver preferences must also be thoroughly explored. Current models struggle with incorporating other colorectal cancer risk factors such as family history, previous adenomas, and modality of previous screening into recommendations and simulations, but are likely to improve with machine learning and whole electronic health record prediction-based approaches.