The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is a group of professionals who sit down and comb through scientific data and serve as the primary authority for primary care physicians to know what to do in terms of preventive care (yay for disease prevention!). Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the US, so today I wanted to talk about USPSTF recommendations for colon cancer screening: why to screen, when to start, and the different methods to screen.
Why: Studies show that as people age, screening for colon cancer decreases the chances you will die from colon cancer! That is important.
When to start:
- Age 45-49 years: should strongly consider screening
- Age 50-75 years: should definitely be doing regular screenings
- Age 76-85 years: should talk to their doctor about continuing screening as some in this age group would benefit.
- If one of your immediate family members has or had colon cancer, then you should start screening at age 40, or 10 years before the age at which your family member was diagnosed (i.e. if your mom had colon cancer at age 47, then you should start screening at 37).
Methods to screen (I’m just going to talk about the three most common):
- Colonoscopy every 10 years.
- Pros: Allows the doctor to look directly at the colon and remove any polyps (potentially cancerous small growths) during the same procedure.
- Cons: an invasive procedure (has some risk), done in a medical facility, you have to drink a laxative liquid that makes you poop a LOT, anesthesia medicines are most often used (small chance of side effects or bad reactions).
- A test for blood and cancer-DNA in your poop every 1 to 3 years.
- About as effective as the colonoscopy!
- One of the common brands of this test on the market is the Cologuard.
- Pros: quick, easy, done at home with a mail-in kit, no unpleasant laxative medicines, no anesthesia medicines, cheaper than a colonoscopy by a lot.
- Cons: If the test is positive, you then have to go have a colonoscopy. Also, you have to handle your own poop at home and some people really don’t like that.
- A test for just blood in your poop once per year. A little less effective than the two tests above but still pretty darn good! Pros and cons are the same as for the other poop test.
A lot of my patients want to know “which test is best”. I usually tell them that the colonoscopy and the blood/cancer-DNA stool test are about equally effective. Then we talk about the convenience factor of the at home test, and that seems to be the way most people go. Although I do have several patients that decide to do the colonoscopy since it is just every 10 years instead of every 1-3 years.
If you’d like to talk in more detail about any of this, it is a conversation that your primary care doctor would be delighted to have. If you don’t have a primary care doctor or are looking for one that has time for you, please check out our website at directmed.care . I am accepting new patients in New Braunfels!
