Guidelines for screening and surveillance of asymptomatic colorectal cancer in patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) are at increased risk of colorectal carcinoma.1,2 Many clinicians practice colonoscopic surveillance in these patients in the hope of detecting dysplasia or an early cancer at a surgically curable stage. However, a recent audit of gastroenterologists showed such surveillance to be disorganised and inconsistent.3 Much debate surrounds the efficacy and cost effectiveness of surveillance programmes in UC4–6 because they were introduced without benefit of randomised controlled trials. The following guidelines should bring uniformity to the process and be of help to both surgeons and physicians. The colorectal cancer risk in patients with colonic Crohn’s disease is similar to that in UC7,8 and thus the guidelines for UC should be equally applicable to such patients with Crohn’s disease. 1. Surveillance colonoscopies should be performed when the disease is in remission. (Recommendation Grade: C). 2. All patients should have a screening colonoscopy after 8–10 years that will also clarify disease extent. (Recommendation Grade: C). 3. Regular surveillance should begin after 8–10 years (from onset of symptoms) for pancolitis and after 15–20 years for left sided disease. (Recommendation Grade: C). 4. As the risk of cancer increases exponentially with time, there should be a decrease in the screening interval with increasing disease duration. For patients with pancolitis, in the second decade of disease a colonoscopy should be conducted every three years, every two years in the third decade, and yearly by the fourth decade of disease. (Recommendation Grade: C). 5. Two to four random biopsy specimens every 10 cm from the entire colon should be taken with additional samples of suspicious areas. (Recommendation Grade: C). Patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (including those with an orthotopic liver transplant) represent a subgroup at higher risk of cancer and they should have annual colonoscopy. (Recommendation Grade: C). Although it …