With innovative technology, it may be possible to screen for stomach and colon cancer and identify patients who need more invasive tests such as colonoscopy, noted Prof Colm Ó Moráin when he delivered the 50th Graves Lecture hosted by the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland last week.
The Trinity College Professor of Gastroenterology believes screening for colon cancer is probably more cost-effective than breast cancer screening. Prof Ó Moráin pointed out that stomach cancer was associated with Helicobacter infection and that diagnosing and eradicating the infection would reduce the death rate from this cancer.
He also presented the results of a trial conducted in the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Tallaght, which showed when patients in the community were properly informed, compliance with screening was very encouraging.
Patients with a positive sample were offered colonoscopy, and the majority of tumours detected were early and curable.
Speaking on the problem of patients not taking action until symptoms had been present for some time, Prof Ó Moráin said: “Not alone is cure rare in these circumstances, but treatment is far more costly. With the increasing expense of modern drug treatments, the argument for screening becomes more difficult to resist.”
About admin
Loading ...
This article is not very informative because it does not say which screening tests there are available.
What are they hiding? The article is only a ‘teaser’. We are left to try to discover what they mean by the process of “screening”? Is it appropriate to wait with colonoscopy until the “screening” shows some abnormality????
I would like to know what type of screening is available. Having had eight colonoscopies in the last 18 years, I would love to be tested and not go through the process of a colonoscopy so often.