Answer to: “Is the National Danish Colorectal Cancer Screening Programme a success?”

The successful implementation of screening programs depends on many things including evidence for the efficacy of the chosen strategy and acceptance/uptake in the general population. In 2001 the Danish National Board of Health’s report on Colorectal Cancer (CRC) screening recommended a national pilot-evaluation using fecal samples, which was done in Copenhagen and Vejle counties 2005–2006, and published in the 2008 Medical Technology Assessment report” Screening for tarmkræft”. Subsequently the National Board of Health established a working group that proposed national guidelines for CRC screening in Danmark. These were published in 2012 and implemented from 2014. We agree that this was a long process, but at the same time the process may have paved the way for achieving the requested short term goals successfully which we showed in the recently published paper. This is a very important milestone for continuous evaluation of programme performance and public trust in the screening program.