Virtual Colonoscopy to Screen for Colorectal Cancer

To the Editor: The data presented by Pickhardt and colleagues (Dec. 4 issue) 1 on the accuracy of virtual colonoscopy are attractive, and to be sure, virtual colonoscopy is a promising diagnostic approach. However, the public and the community of practicing physicians have been led to believe that virtual colonoscopy could or should be implemented as a screening tool for colorectal cancer in place of optical colonoscopy because it is now reported to be as accurate as or more accurate than optical colonoscopy. Unfortunately, this belief is not supported by the aggregate data. First, multiple studies have shown much lower sensitivity . . .