Results of a work-site educational and screening program for hypertension and cancer.

Cardiovascular disease and cancer account for 68% of deaths in the United States each year. Office-based screening efforts to detect early or asymptomatic disease have been modestly successful at best, as neither patients nor physicians routinely follow American Cancer Society guidelines. The work site, representing a captive group of patients, is an alternative screening site. Eight hundred eighty-eight employees at 10 work sites were screened for hypertension and six types of cancer (oral, breast, rectal, colon, prostate, and testicular). Fifty-one employees with new onset or poorly controlled hypertension were identified, along with two early cancers (rectal, breast) and four malignant precursors. Potential dollar savings to employee, employer, and society were three times the cost of the screening program. Screening at the work site represents an efficient, cost-effective approach for the early detection of hypertension and cancer.