Grant: Project Grant

Cancer screening has already saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians. However, who and how we screen for cancer has evolved over time. There are new tests, new needs, and new emerging disease trends. One example of these changes is the increase in early-onset colorectal cancer (eoCRC), among Canadians diagnosed before age 50 - the current recommended age to start screening. In the US, they have already revised their guidelines to screen at age 45 and in some cases as young as 40. In Canada, our healthcare system and how we run screening programs is very different than the US. Making a change to guidelines can have a major impact on scarce health resources, therefore many additional pieces of research and evidence are required for provinces and territories to make proper, informed decisions on whether they should change their screening programs. This grant would provide the evidence for these decisions using our Rapid Evaluation FRAmework for the Modification of Cancer ScrEening (REFRAME) Guidelines. In this project, we will develop the tools to generate the information needed for the provinces to make these types of decisions. We will develop several automated processes to rapidly synthesize what we know about the new questions in cancer screening, how much it would cost to make any changes, and what would be needed across provinces to enable these changes. For this project, we will use eoCRC as the lead example, but we will generate a sustainable, reproducible, and reusable tools that could be used to evaluate other screening changes such as for cervical, lung, breast, as new tests emerge and cancer trends change with our evolving population. Thus, the successful completion of this project has clear next steps and broad ongoing impact in cancer control. Upon the completion of this project, provinces would be equipped with the information they need to make important decisions for patients. REFRAME offers a short time-to-impact in cancer control.