Identification of high risk patients for colonoscopy surveillance from EMR text

In the United States, colorectal cancer (CRC) is third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women. As such, screening tests such as colonoscopy are used to detect CRC. In addition, the removal of pre-cancerous adenomatous polyps via polypectomy during a colonoscopy is associated with lower lifetime incidence (Winawer et al., 1993) and mortality (Baxter et al., 2009). However, this risk is not uniform across the population, so a follow-up colonoscopy needs to be regularly scheduled especially for high-risk patients.