Original guideline: June 2002
MEDLINE (1966 to September 2001), CANCERLIT (1983 to August 2001), and the Cochrane Library (2001, Issue 3) were searched with no language restrictions. "Colonic neoplasms" (Medical subject heading [MeSH]), "rectal neoplasms" (MeSH), and "colorectal neoplasms" (MeSH) were combined with "recurrence" (MeSH), "prognosis" (MeSH), "compliance" (MeSH), "survival analysis" (MeSH), and the following phrases used as text words: "follow-up" and "surveillance". These terms were then combined with the search terms for the following study designs or publication types: practice guidelines, systematic reviews or meta-analyses, randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, and retrospective studies. In addition, the Physician Data Query (PDQ) clinical trials database on the Internet http://nci.nih.gov/search/clinical_trials/) and the conference proceedings of the 1997 to 2001 annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) were searched for reports of new or ongoing trials. The reference lists from retrieved papers were searched for additional trials.
January 2004 Update
The literature search was updated in January 2004 using the MEDLINE (1966 to January [week 1] 2004), EMBASE (1996 to week 52, 2003), and Cochrane Library (2003, issue 3) databases and the 2003 American Society of Clinical Oncology proceedings. The Physician Data Query clinical trials database was also searched for relevant trials.
Inclusion Criteria
Articles were selected for inclusion in this systematic review of the evidence if they were fully published reports or published abstracts of:
- Randomized or non-randomized studies and systematic reviews comparing groups of patients receiving different follow-up programs after curative resection of colorectal cancer, and overall patient survival was reported
- Cohort studies that investigated compliance with follow-up programs after curative resection of colorectal cancer, and overall patient survival was reported
January 2004 Update
The inclusion criteria for updates to this practice guideline have been revised to:
- Randomized trials comparing groups of patients receiving different follow-up programs after curative resection of colorectal cancer, and reporting overall patient survival
- Meta-analyses of these randomized trials
Although survival was the main outcome of interest, results of trials were also searched for recurrence rates, time to recurrence, asymptomatic recurrences, reoperation rates for recurrences, complications, and compliance with follow-up programs.
While not considered for inclusion in any analysis where randomized trials were available, some cohort studies were retained for discussion.