The Department of Health today announced that Hong Kong residents born between 1945 and 1971 are eligible to enrol in the Colorectal Cancer Screening Programme from Friday.

The programme was implemented as a pilot in 2016, regularised in 2018 and fully implemented in 2020 to subsidise asymptomatic Hong Kong residents aged between 50 and 75 to undergo screening tests every two years in the private sector for prevention of colorectal cancer.

There is no quota for participants under the programme and the years of birth of eligible people are updated at the beginning of each year.

Under the programme, participants should attend a medical consultation provided by an enrolled primary care doctor and receive a Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) screening arranged by the doctor.

If the test result is positive, the participant will be referred to an enrolled colonoscopy specialist to receive a colonoscopy examination subsidised by the Government. If the test result is negative, the participant is advised to repeat the screening two years later.

A government subsidy of $280 per consultation applies, including the second consultation to follow up on a positive test result.

Under the standard colonoscopy service package targeted at FIT-positive participants, the subsidy amount is $8,500 if polyp removal is necessary, whereas the amount is $7,800 if no polyp removal is needed.

Colonoscopy specialists may charge a co-payment not exceeding $1,000 when providing the standard colonoscopy examination service.

Currently, more than 860 primary care doctors have enrolled in the programme covering about 1,360 locations. About 97% of these locations will not charge any additional payment for the screening.

About 210 colonoscopy specialists have also joined the programme to provide colonoscopy examination services at about 560 service locations. Around 86% of these locations will not require additional charges if no polyp removal is necessary, while 74% of them will not require additional charges if polyp removal is needed.

Since the programme's launch more than 209,000 eligible people have participated and received a FIT screening.

As of September 27, among those FIT-positive participants who underwent a colonoscopy examination, about 15,200 people or 64.4% of them had colorectal adenomas and around 1,480 people or 6.3% had colorectal cancer.

The department said screenings can identify people who have colorectal cancer before they present with symptoms or those with a higher risk of colorectal cancer and enable them to receive early treatment, thus significantly improve the prognosis.

With colorectal adenomas removed in the course of a colonoscopy, these lesions are also prevented from turning into cancer, it added.

Eligible people who wish to join the programme should enrol on the Electronic Health Record Sharing System.

Call 3565 6288 for enquiries.