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A colonoscopy is considered the best way to screen for colon cancer because it allows doctors to remove polyps — small growths in the colon — before they potentially turn cancerous.
Whereas traditional colonoscopy involves snaking a camera called a colonoscope through your colon and rectum, the virtual option consists of X-rays and a computer creating 3D images of these organs.
New study on colonoscopy finds they may not be that effective at preventing colon cancer, death. But you still need regular colon cancer screening, doctors say.
Routine use of colonoscopy screening varies globally. In the US, colonoscopy is a commonly recommended and widely utilized screening method for colorectal cancer, often beginning at age 45 or 50, depending on risk factors and guidelines from organizations like the American Cancer Society. [9] However, screening practices differ worldwide.
Screening for colorectal cancer, if done early enough, is preventive, seeing as benign lumps called polyps in the colon and rectum are the start to almost all cases of colon cancer. These polyps can be identified and removed by screening tests like a colonoscopy, in which the whole colon is visible.
The signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer depend on the location of the tumor in the bowel, and whether it has spread elsewhere in the body ().The classic warning signs include: worsening constipation, blood in the stool, decrease in stool caliber (thickness), loss of appetite, loss of weight, and nausea or vomiting in someone over 50 years old. [15]
Researchers say a person with a negative initial colonoscopy and no family history of colorectal cancer may not need to have another colonoscopy for 15 years instead of the traditional 10-year wait.
Therefore, if screening works, it needs to advance in time to the moment of diagnosis. In other words, screening needs to introduce a lead time. However, the lead time itself biases survival statistics : people with diseases detected by screening appear to have a longer survival (the time the person has lived after diagnosis) only because ...