Postcolonoscopy Cancers Are Declining in the U.K.

Postcolonoscopy cancers, also known as interval cancers, are colorectal cancers that develop after a colonoscopy is performed and before the next colonoscopy would have been scheduled. In population-based studies, postcolonoscopy cancers are often defined as cancers diagnosed 6 to 36 months after a colonoscopy, although some studies have expanded the interval to 5 or even 10 years. These researchers analyzed data from England's National Health Service to examine how different definitions of postcolonoscopy cancer affected rate estimates.

One of the study's most interesting observations was that regardless of the precise definition, these rates fell between 2001 and 2010. As examples, the rate of these cancers 3 years after colonoscopy fell f…