Medicare study confirms colonoscopy’s benefit.  Medicare watches their pennies—I appreciate that.  Medicare assisted this study of 50,000 older adults which revealed colonoscopies were associated with a significant 73% reduction in right-sided colon cancer and 54% decrease of left-sided colon cancer, compared to those who were not screened.

Screening colonoscopies suggested start age is 50 years old and, if there are no polyps, should be repeated every 10 years.  If there are polyps found, they should be biopsied or taken out completely at the time of colonoscopy.  Depending on what type of cells are found by the pathologists (doctors who look at cells all day), a colonoscopy may need to be performed sooner than 10 years–the date to be determined by the type of cells found in the polyp.

Bowel prep, anyone?