Colorectal Cancer Screening Preferences Among Physicians and Individuals at Average Risk: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Background: Guidelines include several options for average-risk colorectal cancer (CRC) screening that vary in aspects such as invasiveness, recommended frequency, and precision. Thus, patient and provider preferences can help identify an appropriate screening strategy. This study elicited CRC screening preferences of physicians and individuals at average risk for CRC (IAR).

Methods: IAR aged 45-75 years and licensed physicians (primary care or gastroenterology) completed an online discrete choice experiment (DCE). Participants were recruited from representative access panels in the US. Within the DCE, participants traded off preferences between screening type, screening frequency, true-positive, true-negative, and adenoma true positive (physicians only). A mixed logit model was used to obtain predicted choice probabilities for colonoscopy, multi-target stool DNA (mt-sDNA), fecal immunochemical test (FIT), and methylated septin 9 (mSEPT9) blood test.

Results: Preferences of IAR and physicians were affected by screening precision and screening type. IAR also valued more regular screening. Physicians preferred colonoscopy (96.8%) over mt-sDNA (2.8%; p < 0.001), FIT (0.3%; p < 0.001) and mSEPT9 blood test (0.1%; p < 0.01). IAR preferred mt-sDNA (38.8%) over colonoscopy (32.5%; p < 0.001), FIT (19.2%; p < 0.001), and mSEPT9 blood test (9.4%; p < 0.001). IAR naïve to screening preferred non-invasive screening (p < 0.001), while the opposite was found for those who previously underwent colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy.

Conclusions: While physicians overwhelmingly preferred colonoscopy, preferences of IAR were heterogenous, with mt-sDNA being most frequently preferred on average. Offering choices in addition to colonoscopy could improve CRC screening uptake among IAR. This study used a discrete choice experiment in the US to elicit preferences of physicians and individuals at average risk for colorectal cancer screening modalities and their characteristics.