Dear NCCRT Members,

We hope you and your families are staying safe and well. We have a few updates to share with you this week.

Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates Reach 45.6% In FQHCs in 2019

The UDS (Uniform Data System) colorectal cancer screening rate reached 45.6% in 2019, which amounts to a 16 percentage point increase since the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) began tracking colorectal cancer screening as a UDS measure in 2012. Furthermore, 28 health centers reached the 80% goal in 2019. The NCCRT would like to congratulate our partners at HRSA and the National Association for Community Health Centers (NACHC) for championing efforts to increase CRC screening among their grantee and member health centers partners. And most of all, we’d like to share a huge round of applause for the staff and providers at health centers for their persistence and innovation in working day in and day out to provide eligible patients with the opportunity to screen for this largely preventable disease. Visit the HRSA website to learn more about the UDS measure and to find the UDS screening rate for health centers in your state. Visit NCCRT’s Data & Progress webpage to learn about our progress with other national measures.

Reminder: Seeking COVID-19 & CRC Screening Emerging Best Practices

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting colorectal cancer screening rates in unprecedented ways (see NCCRT’s recent “Playbook” on reinvigorating CRC screening amidst COVID-19). Our members and partners are eager to learn from each other about the innovative approaches we’re implementing to both continue CRC screening and communicate that screening is still important and can be done safely in the communities we serve. Does your organization have an emerging best practice to share? If so, please share! Examples could include a clinical workflow that ensures patients with an abnormal stool test get prioritized for colonoscopy, a letter from a health plan to members, an emerging plan to implement Flu-FIT in a drive-through setting this fall, and more. Please share your examples through this form and we will share in 80% Blog posts in the coming weeks.

Reminder: Save the Date for the 80% in Every Community Conference & NCCRT Annual Meeting!

Please be sure to save the data for NCCRT’s annual meeting of the NCCRT membership, which is now expanding to include the 80% in Every Community Conference, to be held virtually on Monday, November 16th and Tuesday, November 17th from 1-4:30pm ET each day. Task group meetings and our NCCRT Orientation session will be held in the weeks prior to the meeting. Timing for these sessions and registration will be announced in the coming weeks. Learn more about the 2020 80% in Every Community Conference and NCCRT Annual Meeting, as well as sponsorship opportunities.

New Multimedia Resources from the Colon Cancer Prevention Project

The Kentucky-based NCCRT member recently released two new resources:

• The new “Cancer Fight” podcast shares stories about colorectal cancer through interviews with survivors and those who are involved professionally or as advocates, with some guests wearing multiple hats. New podcasts are released on Tuesday mornings. Find the episodes on Spotify Anchor or Apple Podcasts.

• A new documentary on early age onset colorectal cancer in Kentucky, “Preventing a Killer: A Documentary”, was recently broadcast on Kentucky Educational Television, the state PBS affiliate.

Relevant Journal Articles and Publications

• A white paper published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, AGA White Paper: Roadmap for the Future of Colorectal Cancer Screening in the United States, posits “a ‘one-size-fits-al’ approach to CRC screening has not and is unlikely to result in increased screening uptake or desired outcomes due to barriers stemming from behavioral, cultural, and socioeconomic causes, especially when combined with inefficiencies in deployment of screening technologies.” The authors propose solutions to overcoming these barriers, including the use of multiple screening modalities, continued development of noninvasive screening tests, and improved personal risk assessment.

• A recent commentary published in J Natl Cancer Inst, The COVID-19 Pandemic: Identifying Adaptive Solutions for Colorectal Cancer Screening in Underserved Communities, describes challenges and opportunities to deliver COVID-adapted CRC screening to medically underserved populations receiving care in community health centers.

• An update to a May 4th study published by Epic Health Research Network, Delayed Cancer Screenings—A Second Look, finds colorectal cancer screenings have rebounded to some degree, but June 16 weekly volumes remained 36% lower than their pre-COVID-19 levels for CRC screenings.

• An update to a previous report from IQVIA Institute, Reopening the U.S. Healthcare System: Tracking the Pandemic, Reopening Readiness, And Health Services Utilization, also finds the number of colonoscopy procedures is rising, but is still below pre-pandemic levels (page 18).

• A systemic review published in the Journal of Community Health, Systematic Review of Interventions to Increase Stool Blood Colorectal Cancer Screening in African Americans, found effective strategies to increase stool blood testing included mailed stool blood tests augmented by patient navigation, tailored educational materials, and follow-up calls or mailings to increase trust in the patient-provider relationship.

• A recent paper in J Natl Cancer Inst, Comparing the cost-effectiveness of innovative colorectal cancer screening tests, evaluated the cost-effectiveness of screening with capsule endoscopy every 5 or 10 years, computed tomographic colonography (CTC) every 5 years, the multi-target stool DNA (mtSDNA) test every 1 or 3 years, and the methylated SEPT9 DNA plasma assay (mSEPT9) every 1 or 2 years.

Many thanks for the great work you do.

The NCCRT Team Did you miss a past edition of CRC News? Visit the News & Research archive.

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