Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains one of the most common cancers in Australia with incidence rates in Australia and New Zealand being among the highest in the World. It has been well established in population-based studies of persons at average risk that screening with FOBT (faecal occult blood test) can reduce mortality from CRC.
There are established international and national guidelines for screening persons at average, moderate and high risk. There is some evidence in health jurisdictions in the USA that incidence of CRC has been falling since the 1980s which may in a large part be due to screening practices, attesting to the benefit of screening in this disorder.

I will outline screening advice for persons with a family history, so called, moderate and high risk. I will then discuss some recent work that looks at a population-based cohort to examine screening practices in different risk strata to examine how we are performing.