Do I need a colonoscopy? New study on colon cancer screening effectiveness.
The benefits of colonoscopy in preventing colorectal cancer may have been exaggerated, according to a new study. Doctors in the U.S. say colon cancer screening does save lives.
Despite the findings of a large European study suggesting that the benefits of colonoscopies may not be as strong as thought, doctors in the U.S. say screening does detect colorectal cancer and saves lives.
The 10-year study, published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that colonoscopies cut the risk of colon cancer by about a fifth, far below estimates from earlier scientific studies. What’s more, the procedure — usually performed with a long, flexible tube that is inserted up the rectum — didn’t help significantly reduce the risk of colon cancer deaths.
Doctors in the U.S. are concerned that the study’s results — based on more than 80,000 men and women ages 55 to 64 — could cause doubt about the effectiveness of colonoscopies, which are recommended for people in the U.S. every 10 years, starting at age 45.
“I fear that this is going to cause a lot of people to question whether they should get colon cancer screening,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins University and the former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
Decades of research have shown that screening is very good at detecting colon cancer, said Brawley.
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