Colon Screening Program anniversary

The population-based Colon Screening Program started with the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) being made available through MSP funding on 1 April 2013. The full program pathway was phased into all regional health authorities in November 2013.

The program pathway is primary-care based, with primary-care providers referring asymptomatic individuals between the ages of 50 and 74 for a screening test—either the FIT or colonoscopy, depending on the patient’s risk of developing colon cancer.

Over the past year we have received a number of questions from primary-care providers across BC about the program. The following frequently asked questions are answered in a blog published on bcmj.org, along with a breakdown of program statistics:

•    Why don’t we repeat FIT in 2 years if a patient has a positive FIT and a negative (or normal) colonoscopy?
•    Why does the program only screen 50- to 74-year-olds?
•    What is the value of referring patients to this program?

For more information on the Colon Screening Program, or to access program materials including the colonoscopy referral form, educational materials, and program standards, please visit www.screeningbc.ca/colon.
—Jennifer Telford, MD

Jennifer J. Telford, MD, MPH, FRCPC, CAGF, FACG. Colon Screening Program anniversary. BCMJ, Vol. 56, No. 10, December, 2014, Page(s) 484 - News.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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