Monitoring and Evaluation of Colorectal Cancer Screening Programmes: Selecting Candidate Performance Indicators- A Review Article

Authors
Arezoo Jabbari
Zhila Najafpour
Somayeh Loveimi
10.61186/ibj.25th-11th-IACRTIMSS
Abstract
Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the fourth cause of death from cancer in the world. CRC screening program was conducted in Iran with the aim of reducing the burden of CRC. The purpose of this study was to introduce the evaluation indicators of the CRC screening program.

Search Strategy: A literature search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SID, and Google scholar from inception until 2024 for English and Persian language articles using keywords "colorectal cancer", "Screening", "Program indicator", "Program Evaluate", which was conducted with the aim of extracting the evaluation indicators of the CRC screening program. Articles were reviewed quantitatively and qualitatively by two researchers.

Results: In total, eight articles were finalized for data extraction. Most of the articles was conducted in Iran (40%) and were descriptive (90%). From the results of this review, an initial list of 79 performance indicators was prepared. These indicators were reviewed by the researchers to identify duplicates. A total of 15 unique indicators were finally retained. Detection rate, Screening coverage, Interval cancer rate, Cause-specific mortality, coverage rate, participation rate, fecal occult blood test positivity was the common indicators used in the studies to evaluate CRC screening programs.

Conclusion and Discussion: CRC screening program in Iran differs from those in other countries which has impacted the indicators. It is recommended to carry out studies to check the availability of the data needed to measure mentioned indicators, as well as their compatibility with Iran.



Keywords
Colorectal Neoplasms
Iran
Review