Receipt of Colonoscopy Following Diagnosis of Advanced Adenomas: An Analysis within Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems.

Background: To reduce colorectal cancer incidence and mortality, experts recommend surveillance colonoscopy 3 years after advanced adenoma removal. Little is known about adherence to that interval.

Methods: We describe patterns of and factors associated with subsequent colonoscopy among persons with ≥3 adenomas and/or ≥1 adenoma with villous/tubulovillous histology in four U.S. integrated healthcare delivery systems. We report Kaplan-Meier estimators of the cumulative percentage of patients undergoing colonoscopy 6 months to 3.5 years after an index colonoscopy with high-risk findings. Combining data from three healthcare systems, we used multivariable logistic regression with inverse probability of censoring weights to estimate ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations between patient characteristics and receipt of subsequent colonoscopy.

Results: Among 6,909 persons with advanced adenomas, the percent receiving a subsequent colonoscopy 6 months to 3.5 years later ranged from 18.3% (95% CI: 11.7%-27.8%) to 59.5% (95% CI: 53.8%-65.2%) across healthcare systems. Differences remained significant in the multivariable model. Patients with ≥3 adenomas were more likely than those with 1 to 2 villous/tubulovillous adenomas to undergo subsequent colonoscopy. Subsequent colonoscopy was also more common for patients ages 60-74 and less common for patients ages 80 to 89 compared with those ages 50 to 54 years at their index colonoscopy. Sex, race/ethnicity, and comorbidity index score were generally not associated with subsequent colonoscopy receipt.

Conclusions: Colonoscopy within the recommended interval following advanced adenoma was underutilized and varied by healthcare system, age, and number of adenomas.

Impact: Strategies to improve adherence to surveillance colonoscopy following advanced adenomas are needed.