Secondary preventive measures include mammography, clinical breast examinations, and breast self-examinations for breast cancer; pelvic examinations and Papanicolaou tests for cervical and ovarian cancer; and sigmoidoscopy, digital rectal examinations, and stool tests for occult blood for colorectal cancer.
Up next: his sigmoidoscopy on YouTube.
They did not directly compare screening colonoscopies with far less invasive and cheaper screening methods, including annual tests for blood in the stool or a sigmoidoscopy, which looks at the lower colon where most cancers occur, every five years.
In contrast, the sigmoidoscopy involves being probed without the benefit of drugs.
We learned that sigmoidoscopy is a cheaper, easier and effective alternative to colonoscopy for colon cancer screening.
Yet studies have repeatedly failed to show that colonoscopy reduces the risk of death from colon cancer more effectively than sigmoidoscopy.
Indeed, two national multidisciplinary task forces state that sigmoidoscopy is just as effective.
Katz President American College of Gastroenterology Philadelphia, Aug. 17, 2010 To the Editor: Your editorial questions the efficacy of colonoscopies and asserts that the less expensive sigmoidoscopy is "easier on the patient".
These limitations could mean the difference between life and death -- especially for high-risk groups, like African-Americans, who have a greater prevalence of right-sided polyps and cancer, which sigmoidoscopy cannot detect.
The sigmoidoscopy had not seen that part of my colon.
Colon cancer screening with colonoscopy — viewing the entire colon — has almost completely replaced more limited sigmoidoscopy, which costs as little as one-tenth as much.
