X-ray Colonoscopy

X-ray Colonoscopy

A federal study waited a long time for an alternative to X-ray dreaded colonoscopy confirms its effectiveness in check most cancers, even though it was far from perfect.





The cheapest option less intrusive might persuade more people to be investigated for cancer of the colon.

And some experts believe that the new method can increase the rate of the investigation of 50 percent for cancer that is a murderer second largest in America.

"We talked for the first time really in the investigation of the population," said Dr. Carl Jaffe, an expert on imaging the National Cancer Institute who was not involved in the investigation.

In the new study, the largest of its kind, the so-called "virtual colonoscopy" identified nine out of 10 people who had cancer and the growths seen by large regular colonoscopies.

But there was damage, too. Among them: The radiologists read wrong sometimes radiography, the leading mark polyps that were not there. That led to unnecessary follow-up test.

The value of the real test of the x-ray can be in the action that really needs a regular colonoscopy - was preferable in ruling out cancer in that discernment, suggests the report in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday.

Colorectal cancer claim about 50,000 lives this year. The point of the investigation, widely recommended at the age of 50 years, is to find growths before they turn cancerous.

Colonoscopy is the gold standard, in which a long, thin tube equipped with a small camcorder is Meander along the large intestine see the forum. Any growth can be removed during the procedure.

It involves sedation and a day lost from work, not to mention the preparation that uses pills or liquids to clean the intestines.

The study focused on CT colonography, also known as virtual colonoscopy. It's a super X-ray of the colon that is faster, cheaper and easier on the patient that traditional colonoscopies.

It also requires the cleansing of intestines and has a potentially serious problem - radiation.

Colonoscopies costing up to $ 3,000. The test of the X-ray costs $ 300 to $ 800; most insurers do not cover so far, but the federal Medicare insurance program for the retiree is considering.

Insurers likely weighed heavily in the new study by reach their decisions, said Dr.. Brooks lasted, which oversees the programs of colorectal and prostate cancer at the American Cancer Society.

The preliminary, unpublished data from the new study and helped persuade the company to turn off cancer and other patterns in March that added virtual colonoscopy and a stool DNA test recommended to the arsenal of research for colon cancer, said the Arroyos .

In the new study, that the standard colonoscopy and X-ray test were given to 2531 people in 15 medical centers in the U.S.

The scrutinized shown great growth in about one in every six people, although some false alarms were not confirmed by colonoscopy.

Of the patients with growths checked by colonoscopy, 90 percent was noted by radiography escudriña.

"That is very good news," said Dr. C. Daniel Johnson, the lead author of the study. He is a researcher at the campus of Mayonnaise Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, with financial ties to a virtual colonoscopy, GE Healthcare.

Support to false alarms - one in four of those patients diagnosed with a growth had a really, MD. Robert Fletcher noticed, a retired professor of Faculty of Medicine at Harvard who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. He is a paid consultant for a company that makes a test of DNA research for cancer of the colon.