Use of antiplatelet agents decreases the positive predictive value of fecal immunochemical tests for colorectal cancer but does not affect their sensitivity

Yoonsuk Jung, Eui Im, Jinhee Lee, Hyeah Lee, Changmo Moon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Previous studies have evaluated the effects of antithrombotic agents on the performance of fecal immunochemical tests (FITs) for the detection of colorectal cancer (CRC), but the results were inconsistent and based on small sample sizes. We studied this topic using a large-scale population-based database. Using the Korean National Cancer Screening Program Database, we compared the performance of FITs for CRC detection between users and non-users of antiplatelet agents and warfarin. Non-users were matched according to age and sex. Among 5,426,469 eligible participants, 768,733 used antiplatelet agents (mono/dual/triple therapy, n = 701,683/63,211/3839), and 19,569 used warfarin, while 4,638,167 were non-users. Among antiplatelet agents, aspirin, clopidogrel, and cilostazol ranked first, second, and third, respectively, in terms of prescription rates. Users of antiplatelet agents (3.62% vs. 4.45%; relative risk (RR): 0.83; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.78-0.88), aspirin (3.66% vs. 4.13%; RR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.83-0.97), and clopidogrel (3.48% vs. 4.88%; RR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.61-0.86) had lower positive predictive values (PPVs) for CRC detection than non-users. However, there were no significant differences in PPV between cilostazol vs. non-users and warfarin users vs. non-users. For PPV, the RR (users vs. non-users) for antiplatelet monotherapy was 0.86, while the RRs for dual and triple antiplatelet therapies (excluding cilostazol) were 0.67 and 0.22, respectively. For all antithrombotic agents, the sensitivity for CRC detection was not different between users and non-users. Use of antiplatelet agents, except cilostazol, may increase the false positives without improving the sensitivity of FITs for CRC detection.

Original languageEnglish
Article number497
JournalJournal of Personalized Medicine
Volume11
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (2020R1A2C1010786 and 2020R1A5A2019210; Chang Mo Moon).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Antiplatelet agents
  • Aspirin
  • Clopidogrel
  • Colorectal cancer
  • Fecal immunochemical test

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