Start colon cancer screening when you hit 40. Previous age to start now obsolete.
Posted by John Reed on
Colon cancer death rates are falling less rapidly than recently and hitting younger people. Actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43 in 2020.
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Native Americans and blacks have higher incidence of diagnoses and deaths. In the case of AK Native Americans, that may be due to difficulty accessing screening. I do not know the reason for other Native Americans or blacks. It is also higher in Appalachia and parts of the South and Midwest. That sounds like failure to get screenings that are available. Those geographic areas also have higher rates of obesity, smoking, and drug overdoses. Sounds like too many not being smart about their health.
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No one should ever die of colon cancer. It is too easy to detect early and remove.
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It used to be mainly a disease of 65 to 74 and older. But now far more under 50 people are being diagnosed with it and they often have advanced, no-longer-curable cases.
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Regular colonoscopies are recommended. Stool samples have been treated as an equal screening method, but they are not equal. I had been doing the stool samples, then I noticed my doctors all got colonoscopies and I asked for one.
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It found a large polyp. It was not cancerous. Had to be removed by an endoscopic resection if I recall the terminology correctly. That was a relatively new procedure. They said if they had found the polyp four years earlier, I would have had 40% of my colon removed and had to wear an ostomy bag and all that! There’s your evidence that stool samples are NOT equal to colonoscopies.
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Get screened. The news is that doctors did not used to recommended starting colon cancer screening until older ages. Now that age has dropped. Since Boseman dies at 43, “Doctor” John Reed’s common sense recommendation is that you start getting screened at age 40.
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I did the stool sample (Cologuard) last year. Result came back negative. They (Exact Sciences) were reporting a false negative rate of 7% at that time.
Planning to do the full screening colonoscopy this year at age 50.