Mega Doctor News
Mega Doctor News — Newswise — The American Cancer Society recommends screening for colorectal cancer in adults beginning at age 45 and continuing through age 75. However, adults over the age of 75 with a history of precancerous polyps — also known as adenomas — are often subject to follow-up colonoscopies. While cancer is a leading cause of death in older adults, there are often competing and more serious conditions older adults are dealing with that can make a colonoscopy, which requires sedation, riskier.
In a recent study published in JAMA, researchers led by Samir Gupta, MD, gastroenterologist at UC San Diego Health, professor of medicine at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and staff physician at the VA San Diego Healthcare System, looked at U.S. veterans 75 years of age and older who had previously undergone colonoscopies to determine whether the benefits of continued cancer surveillance outweighed the risks of competing health conditions.
The study found that the risks of older adults developing colorectal cancer from previous adenomas were much lower than their risks of dying from causes other than colorectal cancer.
