Providing personalized risk information to U.S. patients and providers does not improve the uptake of colorectal cancer screening (CRC), a randomized trial has revealed.

Using a decision aid or provider notification to communicate the personal risk of advanced colorectal neoplasia (ACN)—which includes colorectal cancer or precancerous polyps—affected neither screening uptake nor test completion, researchers reported.

However, they note in the Annals of Internal Medicine that these interventions did increase the probability of completing stool testing in one of the two health systems studied, in a prespecified analysis.

“We speculate that the reason the personalized messages increased stool testing uptake for health system 1 and not health system 2 was that providers at health system

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