Colon cancer screening is effective for reducing mortality from the disease, and CT colonography is a good tool: It's fairly noninvasive and carries a high sensitivity for polyps in the colon, noted Narayan and colleagues. Since there are few studies that address uptake of CT colonography, the group conducted a study to estimate its utilization using data from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey.
The research included information from 14,153 survey respondents between the ages of 50 and 75 with no history of colorectal cancer. Narayan's team identified the number of participants who had undergone CT colonography, optical colonoscopy, and sigmoidoscopy.
The majority of participants (60.1%) reported having had optical colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy, while only 1.4% reported ever having CT colonography.
The investigators found that Black and Hispanic patients were more likely to undergo CT colonography than their white peers (odds ratio, 2.34 and 2.73, respectively -- with 1 being the reference and higher values equal to higher likelihood). Black and Hispanic people were also less likely to undergo optical colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy (odds ratio, 0.49 and 0.61, respectively).
Because CT colonography is underused, these findings could mean that Black and Hispanic individuals are not getting the colon cancer screening they need, according to the authors.
"Continued public awareness and health insurance coverage expansion will promote improved CT colonography utilization and overall colorectal cancer screening rates," the group wrote in the study abstract. "Promotion of CT colonography may reduce racial/ethnic disparities in colorectal cancer screening."
