Adherence to cancer screening guidelines across Canadian provinces: an observational study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cancer screening guidelines reflect the costs and benefits of population-based screening based on evidence from clinical trials. While most of the existing literature on compliance with cancer screening guidelines only measures raw screening rates in the target age groups, we used a novel approach to estimate degree of guideline compliance across Canadian provinces for breast, colorectal and prostate cancer screening. Measuring compliance as the change in age-specific screening rates at the guideline-recommended initiation age (50), we generally found screening patterns across Canadian provinces that were not consistent with guideline compliance.

Methods

We calculated age-cancer-specific screening rates for ages 40-60 using the Canadian Community Health Survey (20

SUBMITTER: Strumpf EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2908097 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature