Alternatives to Colonoscopy for Screening and Surveillance

But one would assume that nowadays, with all social media and stuff, there could be an app from a society where you have an information.

But is there anything like

that? I think there are no shortage of public knowledge about the utility of cancer

screening.

There's also no shortage of public knowledge that you shouldn't smoke, but people still do

that.

I think colonoscopy has become, in the United States, so much a part of the social fabric in the sense that The idea of having a colonoscopy is the punchline for jokes.

It's a scene in comedies.

I think people are just very familiar with the idea that this is what's involved.

And so when their doctor says you need a colonoscopy, I think in most populations, no one goes, what's that? Or why would I do that?

And they say, yes, OK.

And they say, yes, OK.

Or they

vote with their feet and say no.

But it isn't.

It isn't an educational gap

that needs to be closed.

But then there's a very successful campaign over the last 20 years, probably, if that's, you know, colonoscopies everywhere.

I think there's been a successful...

I don't think that's the same in

Europe.

Well, but there has been maybe different kinds of campaigns in Europe, whether you think of them as... public policy maneuvers or public policy announcements, but if every year a fit card shows up in your mail because the central government has sent it to you, you're pretty aware that this is a program that you should be part of.

And I suspect knowing at least a little bit about the requirements in most European grants to show how the public has been involved in the decision-making that this is an important project.

I don't know this to be certain.

You can probably tell me more, but I suspect when the Dutch rolled out their very successful population-level screening program, there must have been some introductory public remarks so that people knew what this was and why they should do it.