Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. In the United States, for example, nearly 135,000 people were diagnosed with the disease in 2012, and more than 51,500 died.
Despite the fact that there are various methods of screening for colon cancer, most doctors simply recommend colonoscopy. Some even choose for their patients, failing to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the method.
Side effects and disadvantages of colonoscopy:
As stated by Dr. Michael Greger, about 1 out of 350 colonoscopy exams end up doing serious damage. Death by colonoscopy, although rare, can also occur. The mortality rate is about 1 in 1,000.
Other methods such as rectosigmoidoscopy tend to have 10 times fewer complications than colonoscopy, but most doctors still recommend the latter method, in about 95% of cases.
Unfortunately, most doctors also fail to inform their patients of the risks of colonoscopy, which include bowel perforation, dysbiosis and other intestinal imbalances, caused by the process of flushing the intestinal tract, complications related to anesthesia , or the false positive results.
We want to make sure our readers have the best information available! Physicians are now able to offer the public equally effective screening options to fight colon cancer as early as possible and save lives. Here are a few :
sigmoidoscopy
Sigmoidoscopy is also called proctosigmoidoscopy or rectosigmoidoscopy. It is an intervention that allows the doctor to observe the sigmoid colon coating, the last part of the colon, and the rectum.
Tumor DNA tests in blood and stool:
These two tests detect genetic mutations present in the blood and in the stool. These promising methods are still being evaluated. The test on stool DNA analysis is adequate because stool can shed mutated cells that originate from cancerous lesions.
Coloscanner:
The colonoscopy, or virtual colonoscopy, is a diagnostic examination of abdominal CT, allowing the three-dimensional reconstruction of the interior of the colon.