The Colon Cancer Prevention Project (CCPP) is encouraging ASGE member endoscopists and gastroenterologists in Kentucky to send an email to Ben Rogers at benjamin.rogers@louisville.edu and Misty Ronau at  mistyronau@kickingbutt.org to subscribe to its new free quarterly newsletter. 

CCPP founder and ASGE member Whitney Jones, MD, explains, “We are ramping up our efforts to improve CRC outcomes through general awareness and evidence-based interventions.”

He adds, “CCPP is working with the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the American College of Gastroenterology and the Kentucky Hospital Association to educate and engage the entire CRC screening healthcare ecosystem, including physicians, surgeons, PAs, ARNPs, coders and hospital administrators.”

While CRC screening rates in Kentucky have increased, Dr. Jones notes that the state’s CRC mortality rate remains unacceptably high – tied for fifth in the U.S. In addition, he says that Kentucky has the nation’s third-highest incidence of young-onset CRC.

The CCPP newsletter will address an array of key issues, including the crucial need for patients to get screened for CRC by the age of 45, reducing the amount of time that’s required for patients who have a positive or abnormal stool-based CRC screening test to get a follow-up colonoscopy, the need for practices and health systems to use the correct billing codes for CRC care and lowering the colonoscopy threshold for younger patients.

CCPP’s newsletter will also cover important issues like genetic testing, MSI and MMR screening and expanding the state’s CRC screening program for uninsured patients (i.e., the Kentucky Colon Cancer Screening and Prevention Program).

Go to ColonCancerPreventionProject.org/ for additional information on CCPP.