Number of cancer-preventive lifestyle behaviors increased with TF at sigmoidoscopy screening
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 12, 2018 (HealthDay News) — An individually tailored written feedback (TF) intervention at sigmoidoscopy screening is associated with small improvements in cancer-preventive lifestyle behaviors, according to a study published in the December issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Markus Dines Knudsen, Ph.D., from the Cancer Registry of Norway in Oslo, and colleagues randomly assigned 3,642 men and women invited to sigmoidoscopy screening to TF, standard leaflet for cancer-preventive lifestyle behaviors, or control. Participants were mailed self-reported lifestyle questionnaires (LSQ) at baseline (prescreening) and one year later. The TF intervention was based on LSQ answers from the prescreening questionnaire. The authors compared between-group differences in single cancer-preventive factors and number of cancer-preventive lifestyle behaviors at prescreening versus one-year follow-up. The study included 1,054 screening participants without neoplastic findings.
The researchers found that compared with the control group, the number of cancer-preventive lifestyle behaviors in the TF group significantly increased by 0.11. Compared with the control group, overweight/obese individuals in the TF group had a −0.84-kg larger reduction in body weight.
“The benefit of teaching cancer preventive behavior in the setting of population-based screening is that it could increase chances of reaching a major portion of the relevant age group or demographic,” Knudsen said in a statement. “At the time of screening, these people may be more responsive to information about cancer prevention.”
One author disclosed financial ties to Amgen.
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