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As primary care physicians (PCPs) are assumed to be the portal for entry into colorectal cancer (CRC) screening, the extent to which patients utilize PCPs might be linked with the risk for CRC (Arch Intern Med 2011; 171:1747).
To investigate this issue further, researchers retrospectively assessed the frequency of visits to PCPs among U.S. Medicare beneficiaries aged 67 to 85 years who received a diagnosis of CRC between 1994 and 2005, and in a matched-control group. Primary care visits included those made between 27 months and 4 months before the index diagnosis. Data were from the linked dataset of Medicare and the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program.
A higher frequency of visits to a PCP (as well as to non–prima…