A study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology claims providers are over-screening dialysis patients for colon cancer.
UC San Francisco physicians Kirsten Johansen, MD and Christopher Carlos, MD, led the study of 469,574 Medicare beneficiaries who received dialysis between 2007 and 2012 and ranked them by their survival rates.
Researchers followed-up with the patients at 1.5 years and 11.6 percent had received a colon cancer screening.
Here's what they found.
1. Providers screened healthier patients 1.53 times more frequently than unhealthy patients.
2. Providers screened patients in line for a kidney transplant 1.68 times more than those who were unlikely to receive such a transplant.
3. Overall screening rate was high in general with 27.9 colonoscopies per 1,000 person-years, which is eight times higher than the 3.4 per 1,000 person-years of Medicare beneficiaries not on dialysis.
Researchers concluded, "While our findings suggest that the patients with the longest life expectancy and greatest chances of receiving a kidney transplant are the most likely to be screened, there remains a substantial amount of over-screening overall among patients on dialysis."