When and how often should I be screened for colorectal cancer?
Screening for colorectal cancer for the average-risk person, and that includes both men and women, should start at the age of fifty. And this can include a number of different screening methods. It's not quite clear which of these is superior. But talk with your physician and come up with a screening plan that is right for you. And they include fecal-occult blood testing, which is testing the stool to see if there's any blood present, because polyps and cancers can bleed, and the earliest sign can be picking up the blood on a fecal-occult blood test. That can be done yearly along with a flexible sygmoidoscopy, which is where a flexible scope is inserted into the anus and looks up the rectum and into the sygmoid colon to look for any abnormal polyps. The recommendation for that is once every five years. That can be combined with fecal-occult blood testing too, to increase the sensitivity of the testing. In other words, to have a better chance of finding a colorectal cancer if there's one there. In addition, double-contrast barium enima can be used every five years to evalate for colorectal cancer. And colonoscopy. Colonoscopy is where a scope is put into the rectum and goes around the colon all the way to the, the most proximal part of the colon, the secum, which can look for polyps anywhere along the line. And to be able to biopsy them and to check for the earliest signs of cancer.
