Colon cancer is the leading cause of death due to cancer in the United States. That’s the bad news. The good news? Statistics show that the survival rate for those who suffer from colon cancer is more than 90 percent when the condition is caught early.
Current guidelines recommend every man and woman get screened for colon cancer, beginning at age 50, or at age 40 if there is a family history of the disease. But studies also show many men and women are reluctant to be screened. Most experts agree that unwillingness to be screened has to do with a reluctance to undergo the most common procedure, a visual (or optical) colonoscopy, in which a doctor uses a flexible instrument with a camera on the end to fully view the inside of the colon.
Fortunately, today there is a less invasive option which is making colonoscopy more appealing to patients. It’s called virtual colonoscopy, and it’s becoming so popular, even President Barack Obama had one performed recently. Virtual colonoscopies use x-rays delivered through a scanner to visualize the interior of the colon from the outside of the body, rather than inserting a scope for viewing. While traditional colonoscopies require sedation, a virtual colonoscopy can be performed without sedation.
If you need to have a colonoscopy but you’ve been postponing it due to your own concerns over the procedure itself, you owe it to yourself and your health to look into a virtual colonoscopy. Don’t delay.
