Data quality and colonoscopy performance indicators in the prevalent round of a FIT-based colorectal cancer screening program

Abstract

Objective: From the prevalent round of the Danish FIT-based colorectal cancer (CRC) screening program, we aimed (i) to evaluate the quality of recorded data and (ii) to characterize the colonoscopies by measuring variation in performance indicators between colonoscopists and assessing the ratio between adenoma detection rate (ADR) and polyp detection rate (PDR).

Materials and methods: This study included screening colonoscopies performed in Central Denmark Region within 60 days of a positive FIT-result from 1 July 2015 through 30 June 2017. The participants were the colonoscopists, performing these procedures. The quality indicators cecal intubation rate (CIR), PDR, polyp retrieval rate (PRR), ADR and withdrawal time (WT) were evaluated. ADR/PDR ratios were calculated.

Results: The concordance between the recorded data and the colonoscopy reports showed Kappa values in the range of 0.47–0.97. The overall CIR was 90.6% (range 73.7%–100%), PDR: 51.9% (range 18.4%–70.2%), PRR: 94.6% (range 69.6%–100%), ADR (conventional adenomas): 50.6% (range 18.4%–70.2%), ADRx (conventional adenomas, traditional serrated adenomas and sessile serrated lesions with dysplasia): 50.9% (range 18.4%–70.2%) and the mean WT was 11.3 min (range 4.5–24.9 min). The ADR/PDR ratio was 92.8% (95% CI: 92.0%–93.6%) and the ADRx/PDR ratio was 93.2% (95% CI: 92.4%–93.9%).

Conclusion: Data quality was generally high. We found considerable variation in performance indicators between colonoscopists reflecting the potential for improvement. Further, our findings revealed that the PDR might be a good proxy for ADR in the context of the prevalent round of FIT-based CRC screening programs.

Keywords:

• Colorectal cancer
• screening
• quality indicators
• performance indicators
• fecal immunochemical test
• adenoma detection rate
• polyp detection rate
• cecal intubation rate
• polyp recovery
• polyp retrieval rate
• withdrawal time

Disclosure statement

BA received test-kits from Roche and self-sampling kits from Axlab for another study and SHN has received a speaking fee from Norgine. Remaining authors declare no conflicting interests.