Today, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) finalized its recommendation to adapt the colorectal cancer (CRC) screening guidelines and lower the age to begin screening to 45 instead of 50.
“Shifting current age-specific screening rates to five years earlier could avert 29,400 CRC cases and 11,100 CRC deaths over the next five years, and dropping the screening age from 50 to 45 could prevent nearly 30000 CRC cases and over 11,000 deaths,” Fight CRC president Anjee Davis said. “The bottom line: lowering the screening age will save lives.”
Fight CRC President Anjee Davis is available for additional comments via phone and/or email interview. Davis is a member of the President’s Cancer Panel and serves in several groups led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI): the Colon Cancer Task Force—Patient Advocate Steering Committee, Council of Research Advocates (NCRA), and the Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee (CTAC). Davis leads Fight Colorectal Cancer, the nation’s leading patient-empowerment and advocacy organization.
In late 2020, Fight CRC submitted formal comments to the USPSTF regarding its draft language suggesting the age for average-risk individuals to include those 45 to 49 years in response to the alarming growth of early age-onset colorectal cancer (EAO CRC).
View and quote Fight CRC’s full comment.
