Cut-rate colon screening misses cancers

You get what you pay for. 

I've warned you before about sigmoidoscopies, the colon screening pushed by insurance companies because they're much cheaper than tried-and-true colonoscopies. 

In fact, these bargain-bin procedures can be had for a quarter of the price of a colonoscopy -- and now, a new study finds that low price is matched only by its low rate of effectiveness. 

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville used data on 52,236 patients aged 67 or older who were hit with a cancer diagnosis within three years of a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy. 

They found that sigmoidoscopy patients got cancer at triple the rate of colonoscopy patients. 

But you don't need a study to figure this out... just a little common sense. 

Colonoscopies look at the entire colon, and can detect and remove polyps anywhere along the way. Sigmoidoscopies, on the other hand, look at only the lower third of the colon. 

I don't have my calculator out, but it seems to me that leaves two-thirds of the colon unexplored -- and plenty of places for cancer to quietly grow. 

And if you're a sigmoidoscopy patient, you won't know until it's too late. 

But insurers love the bottom line -- and they'd much rather pay $250 for a half-assed procedure than cough up $1,000 for the real thing. 

Of course, patients get some of the blame here, too -- because they're happy to play along. Sigmoidoscopies are faster and easier to recover from. And because there's generally no need for sedation, you're back on your feet immediately after it. 

But come on -- what’s a little wooziness when your life's on the line? 

When it comes to colon screenings, skip cheap-o sigmoidoscopies as well as the pricey virtual colonoscopies and go with what's worked on rears for years and years: real colonoscopies. 

Bringing up the rear, 

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.