Tag: FOBT

Colonoscopy and Other Colorectal Cancer Screening Options: An Update

When I wrote about colonoscopy in 2010, colonoscopy was thought to be the best screening test for colorectal cancer because it could visualize the entire colon and could remove adenomas that were precursors of cancer. But only fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) and sigmoidoscopy had been proven to decrease colorectal cancer incidence and mortality (by 16% and 28%, respectively). Observational evidence suggested...

/ November 12, 2013

Questioning Colonoscopy

Everybody knows that colonoscopy is the best test to screen for colorectal cancer and that colonoscopies save lives. Everybody may be wrong. Colonoscopy is increasingly viewed as the gold standard for colorectal cancer screening, but its reputation is not based on solid evidence. In reality,  it is not yet known for certain whether colonoscopy can help reduce the number of deaths from...

/ February 16, 2010