The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has finalized its decision not to fund virtual colonoscopies for Medicare recipients after a public comment period in which several lawmakers and industry associations lobbied the agency to cover the minimally invasive screening test for colorectal cancer.

"The evidence is inadequate to conclude that CT colonography is an appropriate colorectal cancer screening test," says CMS in a statement posted on its Web site yesterday. When it first announced the decision not to cover virtual coloscopies, CMS said it did not find the test to be a cost-effective alternative to colonoscopy. "While it is a promising technology," CMS writes in the final decision, "many questions on the use of CT colonography need to be answered with well designed clinical studies that focus on health outcomes for the Medicare population."

The CTC working group, a coalition of healthcare providers, patient advocates and imaging equipment manufacturers who support coverage of CT colonography, issued a statement yesterday asking CMS to "immediately re-open the rule making process to consider new clinical data" showing the efficacy of the screening test in Medicare recipients. "If CMS will not reconsider this coverage decision, Congress should vote to mandate Medicare coverage of CT colonography," says James H. Thrall, MD, FACR, chair of the American College of Radiology Board of Chancellors.

—Irene Tsikitas