Know someone who needs to be screened for colorectal cancer?
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Other information about colorectal cancer, screening, and colonoscopy, including videos, is available from ASGE on the Screen4ColonCancer web site.
In a computer simulation, FIT — fecal immunochemical testing — done every year saved more lives and cost the least of any colorectal cancer screening method, including colonoscopy.
The computer model looked at 100,000 average risk people and compared screening methods results for
Compared to not screening at all, annual FIT could save 3 out of 4 deaths from colorectal cancer. For every 100,000 people between 50 and 75, nearly 3,500 people wouldn’t get colorectal cancer, and over 1,300 wouldn’t die.
Not only did FIT screening save the most lives, it was the most cost effective. It saved about $70 (Canadian) in screening and cancer treatment expenses for each person screened, better than any other method. Read the rest of this entry »
Image courtesy of SONY Pictures TV
Did Dr. Oz scare you today?
The chances of your colonoscopy resulting in the made-for-TV near-death experience that Dr. Mehmet Oz detailed in a six-part video series on his show and website are highly unlikely. See, Dr. Oz didn’t have a near-death experience, and his colonoscopy story is very common. So can we cut it out with the hysterics, Dr. Oz? You’re scaring people.
Despite guidelines calling for a colonoscopy a year after surgery for colon or rectal cancer, less than half of patients have had one 14 months after colorectal surgery intended to cure their cancer.
A study of stage I, II, and III colorectal cancer patients in the United States found that only 49 percent had received the recommended colonoscopy.
Currently follow-up guidelines call for a surveillance colonoscopy to look for local cancer recurrence or new polyps or cancers a year after surgery. If that exam is normal, another colonoscopy is called for three years later and then every five years. Read the rest of this entry »
When people were offered a personal choice of either FOBT or colonoscopy screening by their primary care provider, more actually completed the test they chose than if only one option was offered.
In a study of 1,000 ethnically and racially diverse people, the lowest percentage had a colonoscopy when that was the only test offered. More completed fecal occult blood testing if it was the single choice. Overall 65 percent of the 1,000 patients studied were screened after their doctor recommended testing. Read the rest of this entry »
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