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by tommilburn 550 days ago
that's insane! everyone should get a colonoscopy, and i believe they're recommending them for people over 40 if you meet certain risk categories

signed up for an account with my real name to share a doc i've been working on for a long, long time now - i've had UC since high school, and have written an extensive guide of what i've learned, if it helps you or anyone else you know who might be getting scoped:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTW2rdF744woSPpFsUeSaFYa...
1 comments
hgomersall 550 days ago
It's estimated by CRUK there are 44,000 bowel cancer cases each year in the UK. Assuming only people over 40 get it, and that's about half the population, the incidence is something like 1 in 800 annually. The rate of "serious complications" for a colonoscopy is about 1 in 300.

Given those numbers, how often should everyone get a colonoscopy?

That's before we get on to the potential harm from a false diagnosis (which is much higher without additional priors).

Yes, absolutely people should pay attention to their bowels and get a colonoscopy when it's indicated. Let's not all rush to get one though unless there's some reason for it.

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tommilburn 550 days ago
to be clear, i'm not a doctor or an expert, just a person with gasto problems - maybe to elaborate a little from my original comment: i think everyone over 40 should be screened (with a colonoscopy or other non-procedure testing) for colon cancer, full stop. then, say, every five or ten years depending on the results?

i also believe pre-screening (stool sample testing, mostly) is getting better, which would potentially help categorize who does and does not need an actual colonoscopy in the future

these are all US stats[0], which i'd imagine is a broadly worse-off group than the UK in terms of like, ultraprocessed foods and other risk factors, but this stood out to me:

> Lifetime Risk of Developing Cancer: Approximately 4.0 percent of men and women will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2018–2021 data, excluding 2020 due to COVID.

anecdotally, i think with gastro problems there's a lot of individual latitude where serious problems might go undetected, under-reported, or assumed to have a less serious cause - i also think (but do not know) that colon cancer develops slowly, which may mean there's a long potential where it could be caught, detected, or risks flagged early by a colonoscopy, which, to me, outweighs the risks of "serious complications" from the procedure

[0] https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/colorect.html

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