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04-05-2018 | Gastrointestinal cancers | News

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GI cancer screening strategies warranted for cystic fibrosis patients

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medwireNews: Cystic fibrosis is associated with an elevated risk for gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, find researchers who stress the need for developing a screening strategy in cystic fibrosis patients.

In a systematic review and meta-analysis of six cohort studies comprising 99,925 patients, individuals with cystic fibrosis had a significantly higher GI cancer risk than the general population, with a pooled standardized incidence ratio (SIR) of 8.13.

As reported in The Lancet Oncology, the risk was also increased for site-specific malignancies, including cancer of the small bowel (SIR=18.94), biliary tract (SIR=17.87), colon (SIR=10.91), and pancreas (SIR=6.18).

The overall risk for GI cancer was greater for cystic fibrosis patients who had versus had not received a lung transplant (SIR=21.13 and 4.18, respectively), and this was also the case for the site-specific tumors.

“Our results support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Task Force recommendation to initiate colon cancer screening at age 40 years,” say study author Atsushi Sakuraba (University of Chicago, Illinois, USA) and colleagues.

But they add: “Considering the continuous improvement in life expectancy observed in patients with cystic fibrosis, we propose that screening strategies for other gastrointestinal cancers need to be developed urgently for these patients.”

By Shreeya Nanda

medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2018 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group

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