Are cancer screening recommendations from top US cancer centers concordant with the USPSTF guidelines?

Abstract

10535 Background: The USPSTF is an independent volunteer organization of multi-disciplinary national experts in disease prevention that publishes evidence-based non-binding recommendations for screening diseases, including cancer. Herein we assessed the congruence of cancer screening recommendations between the USPSTF and the Top 10 US Cancer Centers (as per the U.S News and World Report). Methods: This cross-sectional study compared the published screening recommendations from the Top 10 US Cancer Centers for colorectal (CRC), lung (LC), cervical (CC), prostate (PC), and breast cancers (BC) in average risk patients, to those of the USPSTF. The variables of interest included: screening tests, recommendation direction (for/against), strength, frequency, age of start, age of end, and discussion about risks and benefits. Data extraction was done by 2 authors and discrepancies resolved by mutual consensus and discussion with a third author. Results: We demonstrate the differences between the screening recommendations from the Top 10 Cancer Centers relative to those from the USPSTF (Table). Conclusions: Our study found significant variability between the screening recommendations from the 2022-2023 USNWR top 10 cancer centers and the evidence-based USPSTF guidelines for BC, PC, CC, and CRC. The recommendations for LC were overall in line with those of the USPSTF. The discordance was almost always in the direction of the cancer centers recommending more screening beyond the USPSTF’s recommendations, and often without discussion of potential risks and harms. This inconsistency could create confusion to the public, and therefore, a consistent messaging across the cancer centers congruent with the USPSTF recommendations and including a nuanced discussion of benefits and risks may be in the best public health interest.[Table: see text]