Chemoprevention for colorectal neoplasia.

Colorectal cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized societies and leads to significant treatment costs. Currently there are screening programs with fecal occult blood testing, radiographic, and endoscopic evaluation. Despite this, mortality from colorectal cancer has not improved dramatically. As such, attention has turned to finding agents to prevent carcinogenesis. The emerging field known as chemoprevention studies agents that target multiple steps in the development of adenomas and their subsequent transformation to colorectal carcinoma. There are multiple case control, cohort, and randomized controlled trials investigating the efficacy of fiber, calcium, vitamin D, folate, and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs as chemopreventive agents against colorectal cancer.