Colorectal cancer surveillance in inflammatory bowel diseases

Colorectal cancer development is possibly the most important complication of inflammatory bowel diseases. Colorectal cancer generally develops in long-standing inflammatory bowel diseases. Although previously it was believed that there is higher risk in ulcerative colitis patients, nowadays, it has been shown that the risk for colorectal cancer is almost the same in both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Therefore, there are surveillance colonoscopy programs, which are being performed commonly to diagnose dysplasia and/or carcinoma at an early stage and to improve patients’ outcome. The definitions of dysplasia and the approaches to this kind of patients are not still clear, also future studies are needed to clarify the cost-effectiveness of these programs. So far, only established advantage of surveillance in inflammatory bowel disease is to diagnose colorectal cancers at an earlier stage in patients involved in surveillance programs. [Turk J Cancer 2004;34(2):55-59]