Figure 1.

Graphical representation of natural history of colorectal cancer as modeled by MISCAN model. Screening provides the opportunity to intervene in the natural history of the adenoma carcinoma sequence. Screening can either remove a precancerous lesion (i.e., adenoma), thus moving a person to the “No lesion” state, or through early cancer detection, which makes an undiagnosed cancer clinically detected at a potentially earlier stage of disease where it is more amenable to treatment.