Colon Cancer – Testing

Transcript

The best option for screening for colon cancer is a colonoscopy, which is done by a gastroenterologist. This is highly recommended for everyone over the age of 50, and if you have a family history, you should do it earlier. Other options include CT colonography, which is a CT scan of the colon. It is a little bit less invasive and if there’s a suspicious lesion that is found on CT colonography, those people still have to undergo a regular colonoscopy for biopsying of the suspicious lesion. I have some patients who absolutely refuse to do any colonoscopy. For those patients, I recommend to do a stool occult blood tests that will detect any microscopic evidence of bleeding in the stool as well as a Cologuard test, which is a newer test that looks for any evidence of DNA from any underlying potential tumors in the colon.