Impact of Follow-Up Colonoscopy Quality on Canadian Colorectal Cancer Outcomes and Costs

Background: Most colorectal cancer (CRC) cases develop from precancerous polyps. Screening using fecal testing for occult blood, with follow-up diagnostic colonoscopy to remove polyps, can prevent invasive cancer from occurring. However, there is variation in the quality of colonoscopy, which may result in nonoptimal health outcomes. Aim: We evaluated the impact of follow-up colonoscopy quality on health outcomes, resource utilization and costs using the OncoSim-CRC microsimulation model (version 2.5). Methods: OncoSim is a microsimulation model led by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer with model development by Statistics Canada. We compared results of high quality follow-up colonoscopy after positive fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) (colonoscopy sensitivity for cancer detection= 95%; compliance to follow-up colonoscopy = 85%) with that of reduced quality colonoscopy. Variations in colonoscopy performance were simulated through plausible overall effectiveness reduction (ER) and incomplete colonosc...