Study finds breast cancer screening attendance helps boost other cancer screenings

Offering self-sampling kits to women overdue for cervical cancer (CC) or colorectal cancer (CRC) screening when they attend breast cancer (BC) screening can result in increased screening participation, according to a study published online Aug. 13 in PLOS Medicine.

Anne Dorte Lerche Helgestad, from Randers Regional Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of leveraging the high participation rate in BC screening to offer self-sampling kits to nonparticipants in CC and CRC screening. The analysis included 27,116 women (aged 50 to 69 years) attending BC screening on one of 100 weekdays at five screening units.

The researchers found that six months after the intervention, total coverage was significantly higher in the intervention group versus the control group (offered standard screening) for CC screening (88.3 versus 83.5 percent) and CRC screening (79.8 versus 76.0 percent).

For women overdue for CC screening, participation in the intervention group was 32.0 percent versus 6.1 percent in the control group. For those with overdue CRC screening, participation in the intervention group was 23.8 percent, versus 8.9 percent in the control group.

“This study suggests that combining preventive services may offer a pragmatic strategy to enhancing the effectiveness of public health interventions in various settings,” the authors write. “The intervention strategy can be easily expanded and could increase screening participation if implemented on a larger scale.”

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