Abstract
At our health care center, we perform gastric cancer screening by means of direct fluororadiography in order to evaluate and promote the health of the local residents. In our case, the screening conducted for examinees from occupational groups carrying contracts with health insurance unions accounts for 70 percent of the total number of examinees, but this situation results in a problem, namely that the follow-up rate of the screened abnormalities often remains low. We usually explain the results to the examinees on the same day of the screening, and recommend those examinees in whom abnormalities were detected to revisit us for further examination 2 to 4 months later, in the hope that the follow-up rate will rise. This time, we looked into the results of our gastric cancer screening and evaluated the method of follow-up examination. During the five-year periods fiscal 2001 to 2005, the total number of examinees who underwent gastric cancer screening was 187,042. The average yearly rate of recommended further examination was 4.52%. The rate of examinees who actually underwent further examination was 73.0% of those. In the group whose members were recommended to undergo further examination for the first time, the follow-up rate was 18.9%, and in the group whose members were recommended to undergo further examination the second time, the follow-up rate was 10.5%. The cancer detection rate was 0.072%. Especially in the occupational group, the rate of abnormality detection at our health care center was much higher than the detection rate nationwide: thus, this suggests that it is essential to have a complete follow-up system.
