When gold standards are not so golden: A critical appraisal of the evidence on the effectiveness of colorectal cancer screening from trials & studies

Department of Epidemiology Seminar Series

Speaker:
Hermann Brenner, MD, MPH
Professor of Epidemiology, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Head Div. Of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg

Abstract: Based on compelling evidence from observational epidemiological studies, screening colonoscopy has since long been thought to provide strong protection from colorectal cancer. This view has been challenged by the recent publication of 10-year results from the NordICC trial, the first randomized controlled trial on long-term effects of screening colonoscopy, which reported much weaker-than-expected reduction of colorectal cancer risk and mortality. This seminar provides a critical review and appraisal of the NordICC trial design and results, and presents alternative analyses which may explain and help to overcome much of the apparent discrepancy between the observational studies’ and trial’s results.

Bio: Hermann Brenner graduated in Medicine (M.D.) at the University of Tübingen, Germany, in 1985, and in Epidemiology (M.P.H.) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, in 1988. He served as Professor of Epidemiology, Head of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Ulm in Germany (1995-2000). In 2000, he was appointed Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, led a Division of Epidemiology at the German Centre for Research on Ageing in 2000-2005 and established and led a Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg since 2006.