American Cancer Society guidelines for the early detection of cancer

Each year the American Cancer Society publishes a summary of existing recommendations for early cancer detection, including updates, and/or emerging issues that are relevant to screening for cancer. In last year's article, the guidelines regarding screening for the early detection of prostate, colorectal, and endometrial cancers were updated, as was the narrative pertaining to testing for early lung cancer detection. Although none of the ACS's guidelines were updated in 2001, work is proceeding on an update of screening recommendations for breast and cervical cancer and an update of these guidelines will be announced in the January/February 2003 issue of CA. As in previous issues, we review recommendations for the "cancer-related check-up," in which clinical encounters provide case-finding and health counseling opportunities. Finally, we provide an update of the most recent data pertaining to participation rates in cancer screening by age, gender, and ethnicity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).