Developments in Screening Tests and Strategies for Colorectal Cancer

Table 4

Performance of endoscopic colonoscopy screens.

	Sensitivity	Advantages	Disadvantages	Comments
Rigid sigmoidoscopy	~25% [54]	Ease of operation; Can be performed by clinician	Patient discomfort; Does not visualize proximal colon	Rarely used in USA
Flexible sigmoidoscopy	~45% [54, 111]	More comfortable than rigid	Does not visualize proximal colon	Rarely used in USA
Colonoscopy	~80% [16, 111]	Gold standard	Extensive bowel preparation; No randomized controlled prospective studies

Reported as polyps detected.
Sensitivity for ≤5 mm polyps; the figures for CRC are 60 and 95%, respectively.