Discussing Stopping Cancer Screening and Prognosis With Older Adults

The American Cancer Society and the American Board of Internal Medicine Choosing Wisely
Campaign recommend clinicians not screen older adults who have <10 year life expectancy for
breast (specific to women) or colorectal cancer (CRC). This is because these patients have
little chance of experiencing the life prolonging benefits of cancer screening and instead
may only experience harm from being screened. The most concerning harm of cancer screening is
overdiagnosis - the diagnosis and treatment of cancers that otherwise would not have caused
problems in an older adult's lifetime. Despite this, around half of adults >75 years with <10
year life expectancy are regularly screened for cancer. One reason for the overuse of these
tests is that PCPs feel uncomfortable discussing stopping screening with older adults since
it requires estimating and discussing patient prognosis. Some PCPs admit to recommending
cancer screening to older adults with short life expectancy simply to avoid talking to
patients about prognosis. However, by avoiding these discussions, PCPs may be impeding older
adults' ability to make informed decisions about their care and may be putting patients at
risk of the harms of cancer screening without any chance of benefit. Therefore, the
investigators aim to interview PCPs and older adults about their thoughts and feelings on how
PCPs may discuss older adults' prognosis in the context of talking about stopping cancer
screening. Based on those findings, the investigators will develop strategies for PCPs to use
to approach these discussions and will draft scripts to suggest language for PCPs to use when
communicating about prognosis when recommending stopping cancer screening. Then, the
investigators will study if providing PCPs with these scripts and information about their
patients' prognosis is useful. Specifically, the investigators will provide 45 PCPs with
information about their patients' prognosis and the example scripts before a clinic visit for
up to 5 of their patients. The investigators aim to recruit 90 patients with approximately
5-10 year life expectancy. The investigators will interview PCPs and older adults after these
visits to learn how and/or if the prognostic information and the scripts were used. These
data are essential for improving the quality of PCP discussions around stopping cancer
screening and will ultimately improve the care of older adults.

Specific Aims:

1. To learn from PCPs and older adults about how to discuss patient prognosis when
recommending stopping cancer screening and to develop strategies for having these
discussions.

2. To study whether providing information on patient prognosis and scripts for discussing
patient prognosis when recommending stopping cancer screening are useful to PCPs and
older adults.

Inclusion Criteria:

- English-speaking

- Aged 76 to 89 years

- Scheduled for a routine visit or physical with their PCP in the next 3-12 weeks

- Patient aged 76-79 must have a least one Charlson Comorbidity

- Patient must have undergone CRC screening within the last 10 years

- Women only: patient must have undergone mammography screening within the last 3 years

Exclusion Criteria:

- older adults with dementia

- older adults with a history of colon cancer

- older adults whose last colonoscopy was read as abnormal

- older women who have a history of breast cancer

- older adults whose PCP has already had 5 patients participate in the study

- older women whose last mammogram was read as abnormal