Detecting Colorectal Cancer
Why you have to drink all that liquid before your colonoscopy?
When just a few more ounces of liquid stand between you and your colonoscopy, skipping them is no big deal, right? If you don’t follow your doctor’s prep instructions exactly, you may have to reschedule the procedure and go through the whole prep all over again.
Why? During a colonoscopy, the doctor uses a special camera to search the walls of the colon for polyps and other areas of abnormal cells so they can be removed before they turn cancerous. But if you haven’t followed the pre-colonoscopy instructions, those areas can be hidden by waste matter left behind in your colon. Undetected, they may develop into cancer.
So stick to the liquid diet, follow your doctor’s pre-colonoscopy instructions carefully, and raise your glass—over and over—to your own good health, until your colon is squeaky clean and ready for its close-up.
* Fecal occult blood test (FOBT) or fecal immunochemical test (FIT), performed once a year, plus flexible sigmoidoscopy, performed every five years. FOBT and FIT involve collecting small stool samples (at home), which are then tested to detect colorectal cancer. If the tests show abnormal results, a colonoscopy will be needed to provide more information. You will be asked to avoid certain foods before doing the FOBT. Note that the FOBT and FIT must be done once a day for three days in a row, every year.
Flexible sigmoidoscopy, used along with FOBT and FIT, is similar to a colonoscopy, but is used to examine only the lower part of the colon.
What about “virtual colonoscopy?”
You may heard about “virtual colonoscopy” (also called VC, or CT colography), a non-invasive procedure that uses computerized tomography (CT), a type of medical imaging, to detect colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps. This method was developed as an alternative to regular colonoscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy, both of which use a camera on a flexible tube that is inserted through the rectum and up into the colon to examine the colon walls. It’s hoped that people who don’t want to have a colonoscopy will be more willing to be screened with VC—a move that ultimately could lead to fewer deaths from colorectal cancer.
But know the details: VC requires the same pre-test bowel preparation (medications and liquid diet) as colonoscopy, and if VC reveals any polyps or flat lesions, traditional colonoscopy will have to be done anyway so those areas can be removed. And be aware that health insurance coverage for VC varies among providers; without adequate scientific data to prove its reliability, currently the procedure is not covered by Medicare for colorectal cancer screening.
