Scoping Out Colon Cancer!

It’s not likely to make anyone’s bucket list, but a colonoscopy could save you from needing to do everything on that list anytime soon.

A new study confirms that regular colonoscopy screening, which involves inserting a scope through the rectum and into the intestines to detect and sometimes remove growths, can lower the risk of colon cancer by 77%. That number changes depending on the exact site of tumors: risk is reduced just 56% if the growth is on the right side of the intestines (which is harder to reach with the scope), but that is still a big improvement over people who did not get routine screenings.

Common wisdom calls for a colonoscopy once every 10 years for anyone over age 50, but that advice has been questioned by recent studies suggesting that the invasive and relatively expensive procedure does not find more tumors than less expensive tests that analyze fecal blood or use a shorter scope. The reason for the varying results may be operator skill; proper preparation and thorough execution of the test could improve its effectiveness.

For patients, it may be worth seeking out such skilled physicians, since colonoscopy is one of the few screening tools that can both detect precancerous growths and remove them, preventing cancer in a single procedure.

This information is from Time Magazine Jan 17, 2011, Lab Report by Alice Park.

If you are over 50 please discuss with your doctor scheduling a colonoscopic screening for your health and life.

To your Health, Leigh

Blood Test To Spot Cancer to be studied.

According to an article by the Associated Press writer Marilynn Marchione a BLOOD TEST so sensitive that can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at your doctor's office.

Boston scientists who invented the test and health care giant Johnson & Johnson announced that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centers also will start studies using the experimental test this year.

Stray cancer cells in the blood mean that a tumor has spread or is likely to, many doctors believe. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung.

Initially, doctors want to use the test to try to predict what treatments would be best for each patient's tumor and find out quickly if they are working.

"This is like a liquid biopsy" that avoids painful tissue sampling and may give a better way to monitor patients than periodic imaging scans, said Dr Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's cancer center and one of the test's inventors.

Ultimately, the test may offer a way to screen for cancer besides the mammograms, colonoscopies, and other less-than-ideal methods used now.

"There's a lot of potential here, and that's why there's a lot of excitement," said Dr Mark Kris, lung cancer chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He had no role in developing the test, but Sloan-Kettering is one of the sites that will study it this year.