The Danish national colorectal cancer screening program includes all citizens aged 50-74 years, who are invited biennially to a fecal test for invisible blood in the stool. If the test is positive the citizen is invited for a colonoscopy. 90% of the test-positive undergo colonoscopy. The detected cancers are at a significant earlier stage and survival from screening detected cancer is higher. It is also expected that cancer incidence will drop due to removal of the advanced adenomas before they develop into cancer. Although initial results are positive, there is room for improvement. Additionally there are rare but serious complications to colonoscopy in the form of bleeding or bowel perforation.
Through four years the investigators have tested the colon capsule endoscopy method, and find that the investigation is associated with significantly less discomfort and that the diagnostic ability to find polyps \> 1 cm is better than colonoscopy.
