SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - New, simplified and updated colorectal cancer guidelines have been drawn up for the NWT in hopes that more people will get themselves screened.

Dr. Angus Maciver, former staff surgeon and chief of staff at the Inuvik General Hospital explains the new 2011 guidelines for colorectal cancer screening. - Katherine Hudson/NNSL photo

According to the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada, colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in Canada.

Educating the public about the risk factors, statistics and screening guidelines associated with the disease is the goal of the GNWT Department of Health and Social Services as the chief public health officer and the NWT medical directors have approved and are recommending the implementation of the updated 2011 NWT colorectal cancer screening clinical practice guidelines as a standard of practice throughout the NWT. The guidelines were last updated in January 2010.

Last week, Dr. Angus Maciver, former staff surgeon and chief of staff at the Inuvik General Hospital and Dr. Maureen Mayhew, acting chief public health officer for the territorial health department explained the new guidelines and screening test available to the public.

"One of the stimulants for updating these guidelines, the last ones were done in 2010, was (firstly) to update some of the risk-factor information and the FIT (fecal immunochemical) test which wasn't in the old guidelines and (secondly) people had requested a much user-friendly guideline," said Mayhew.

The previous guideline was 18 pages long while the 2011 guideline is only three pages long complete with information on the clinical practice guidelines and screening for both individuals with average and increased risks.

The FIT test detects hidden blood in stool samples. The test reacts to part of the human hemoglobin protein, which is found in red blood cells. The test is simpler than previous tests, as there are no drug or dietary restrictions.

He said earlier tests weren't very specific, as an individual could test positive for increased risk of the disease if beef was ingested and beef blood was present in the stool sample.

"The ingested iron can come from a number of sources while the test focuses on the protein, which is specific to human blood. It pretty well tells us that it's highly likely this is blood that has been shed in the large intestine and one of the most common causes of blood loss in the large intestine is colon cancers," said Maciver.

Maciver explained the FIT test should be performed on individuals from the age of 50 to 74 every one to two years if it comes up negative. If the test comes up positive, the individual would be referred for a diagnostic colonoscopy.

Maciver said he hopes, through the user-friendly guidelines and the new standardized FIT test to assess the risk of colorectal cancer, the compliance rate in the territories will increase from where it now sits, at 32 per cent for those over the age of 50.

"Both provider compliance and patience compliance are big issues, especially up here. Colon cancer is a lot higher in frequency in the territories than basically any other province, other than Newfoundland," said Maciver.

He said this is due to high levels of saturated fats in the diet and a lack of exercise.

"The cause of cancer death may be related to either delay in diagnosis and disease may be getting picked up at a later stage. For that reason, that's all the more reason to get our screening revved up a bit, pick up things earlier than what may have been happening," said Maciver.

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