'Screening saves lives': Sask. has Canada's lowest rates of late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis
Chelsea Laskowski | CBC News | Posted: December 20, 2018 1:00 PM | Last Updated: December 20, 2018
Colorectal among most common types of cancer, 2nd-most deadly in Canada
It's a simple letter, accompanied by a kit and a request for you to send off some samples of your poop.
That letter is part of the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency's (SCA's) colorectal cancer screening process. Linda Weir, the program's head of early detection, said the agency has a response rate of more than 50 per cent.
"That's extremely gratifying to see that the Saskatchewan population really has embraced this program and it will just continue to get better and better," she said. "Screening saves lives."
Data used in a new Statistics Canada health report shows that there are fewer late-stage colorectal cancer diagnoses in Saskatchewan than any other province or territory in Canada. Numbers from Quebec were not available.
Saskatchewan's 46.1 per cent late-stage (stage III and IV) colorectal diagnosis rate is nearly three per cent lower than Canada's overall rate.
Back between 2005 to 2007, before the screening process was in place, more than half of colorectal cancer cases were already in the advanced stage when diagnosed. This shows the Saskatchewan rates have dropped by nearly four per cent between then and the period between 2011 and 2015.
Talking about cancer may seem grim, but Weir said the numbers tell a hopeful story.
"To me, it really indicates that we want to promote screening more and more to all across Canada, in Saskatchewan, across Canada, to work towards that early screening," she said.
Not only is colorectal cancer one of the most common in the country, along with breast, lung and prostate cancer, it and lung cancer are most likely to be diagnosed in the late stages — which means survival rates are lower.
Around 156,000 Saskatchewan residents in the high-risk age groups have sent off the colorectal screening kits in the two-year period after receiving them.
The program was introduced in its current form in 2013, after a few years of setting it up and piloting it.
It takes some time for screening programs to show up in statistics, Weir said, pointing out that the 80 per cent early-stage diagnosis for breast cancer across Canada comes after screening programs were introduced in the 1990s.
Saskatchewan currently offers three screening programs: for colorectal, breast and cervical cancer.
"The dream is that 100 per cent of our population in the target age groups would get screened," Weir said.
Lung cancer screening is not yet in place in Canada. No database exists for its specific target population of smokers in a certain age range, Weir said, meaning people need to self-identify. However, she said she'll be watching closely as some provinces pursue lung cancer screening pilot projects.
Overall, between 1988 and 2017, cancer death rates have dropped by 32 percent for women and 17 per cent for men.