Nonrecommended breast and colorectal cancer screening for young women: a vignette-based survey.

Background: Little is known about the prevalence of physicians offering nonrecommended breast or colorectal cancer screening for young women.

Purpose: The goal of the current paper was to examine the percentage of primary care physicians nationally who self-report offering breast or colorectal cancer screening tests for young women, and physician/practice characteristics associated with such recommendations.

Methods: Analysis was performed in 2011 on data from a 2008 cross-sectional survey presenting a vignette of a health maintenance visit by an asymptomatic woman aged 35 years. This study included surveys sent to 1546 U.S. family physicians, general internists, and obstetrician-gynecologists aged <65 years, randomly selected from the AMA Physician Masterfile (60.6% response rate). Relevant respondent subsamples were used for the breast (n=505) and colorectal (n=721) cancer screening analyses. Responses were weighted to represent physicians nationally. The main outcome was physician self-report of offering breast or colorectal cancer screening tests.

Results: 75.3% (95% CI =71.0%, 79.2%) of physicians offered breast cancer screening tests; most commonly these physicians reported offering mammography alone (76.5%, 95% CI= 71.6%, 80.8%). A total of 39.3% (95% CI=35.5%, 43.2%) of physicians offered colorectal cancer screening tests; most commonly these physicians reported offering FOBT alone (43.3%, 95% CI=37.2%, 49.6%). In adjusted analysis, physician factors associated with offering breast and colorectal cancer screening tests were: estimating higher patient breast/colorectal cancer risk, and not listing the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force as a top influential organization.

Conclusions: A high percentage of physicians report offering nonrecommended breast or colorectal cancer screening tests for young women. Physicians' higher cancer-risk estimation accounted for some overscreening, but even physicians who estimated the patient to be at the same risk as the general population reported offering nonrecommended screening tests.