Association between metabolic syndrome and participation in colorectal cancer screening in Japan: A retrospective...

People with metabolic syndrome have an elevated risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC), and are recommended to undergo cancer screening. This study examined the association between metabolic syndrome and CRC screening participation in Japan.

This retrospective cohort study was conducted using insurance claims data, health checkup data, and cancer screening data from a Japanese city. The study population comprised persons aged 40-74 years who had undergone health checkups between fiscal years (FY) 2016 and 2019. The exposure was metabolic syndrome risk (high risk, moderate risk, and no risk) as determined during health checkups. The outcome was CRC screening participation. Logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between metabolic syndrome risk and CRC screening participation.

We analyzed 20,558 people in the FY2016 cohort, 19,065 people in the FY2017 cohort, 17,496 people in the FY2018 cohort, and 15,647 people in the FY2019 cohort. The odds of CRC screening participation were significantly lower in the moderate-risk group (P < 0.05) in all FYs except FY2019 and the high-risk group (P < 0.001) in all FYs when compared with the no-risk group. When analyzed according to age group, older persons aged 65-74 years generally had significantly lower odds of CRC screening participation than persons aged 40-49 years across all metabolic syndrome risk groups.

This is the first study from Japan to show that people with metabolic syndrome, especially older persons aged 65-74 years, are less likely to undergo CRC screening than people without metabolic syndrome. These findings indicate a need to develop and implement age-specific measures to increase cancer screening uptake among persons with metabolic syndrome.