This is an excellent question, though I’ve had to do some searching to find the answer. ColonSentry is a novel approach to screening for colorectal cancer, an idea driven by the poor compliance of patients sending in a stool sample. It’s a blood test that uses DNA profiling techniques to obtain a relative risk score for colorectal cancer. It screens out high-risk patients who can then be referred for colonoscopy. Colorectal cancer is one disease in which screening could make a real difference, as it’s much more curable if found early. It has a long asymptomatic period where intervention could take place and it’s all too common (being diagnosed in about 60 Canadians a day).

The test has been validated in a 700+ patient case-control study and further large-scale studies are being planned (possibly working together with some of the provincial programs that are just getting up and running). It seems scientifically valid, and although large population-based studies are lacking, it has the potential to compete against studies such as fecal occult blood, if the issue of patient compliance is judged to outweigh the potential cost issues. A lot of the work for this was done in Toronto, so ColonSentry can boast a strong Canadian content.

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