Screening people for colorectal cancer before they reach 65 and are eligible for Medicare could save millions of dollars of future Medicare costs according to a New York City study.
While Medicare covers the cost of screening colonoscopies, people need to be 65 to benefit. Many uninsured adults from 50 to 64 have no way to get screened for colorectal cancer at all. Read the rest of this entry »
Current colorectal cancer screening guidelines call for testing average risk people when they reach their fiftieth birthday. But is that soon enough? Would earlier screening find more adenomatous polyps and prevent more colorectal cancer?
Scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine reviewed nearly 3,600 autopsies performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1985 through 2004. They compared the younger group from 20 to 49 to older patients from 50 to 89. They looked at the adenomatous polyps found in each decade of life, as well as patient sex and race and the location of the polyps in the colon.
Fewer than 2 percent of the autopsied patients in their twenties had adenomas, rising to about 3.6 percent between ages 40 and 49. However, the number of people with adenomas increased sharply after 50. Read the rest of this entry »
When physicians exam the rectum with a gloved finger, they are unlikely to find a real tumor and more likely to refer patients unnecessarily for further tests. Digital rectal exams are a poor way to accurately identify rectal cancer according to a recently published study from the United Kingdom. Read the rest of this entry »
Computerized tomographic colonography (CTC), so-called virtual colonoscopy, proved accurate in locating colon polyps or cancers 10 millimeters or larger in a large study conducted in a number of community centers across the United States. The x-ray-based test found 90 percent of l0 millimeter polyps identified by traditional colonoscopy, which uses a lighted tube inserted into the rectum to view the colon. Read the rest of this entry »
When patients were retested five years after a negative colonoscopy, none had colon or rectal cancer and very few had a worrisome advanced polyp. Read the rest of this entry »
