The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a draft research plan to guide its colorectal cancer guideline development, Medscape reports.
What you should know:
1. The plan includes an analytic framework, key questions, study approach and a decision model the taskforce will use as it debates whether to update its CRC guidelines.
2. The taskforce is considering whether to lower the screening age recommendation from 50 years to 45 years, following in the American Cancer Society and Canadian Association of Gastroenterology's footsteps.
3. USPSTF released its current guidelines in 2016. Those guidelines recommended patients start screening at 50 and discontinue at 75.
4. The guidelines also recognized individual CRC screening tests but did not recommend one test over the others.
5. USPSTF could release a guideline in 2021, although a public coalition is requesting the task force act sooner.