• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Standard colon polyp detection much less effective in women

Ambulatory Safety Monitor, June 2, 2005

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Ambulatory Safety Monitor!

The results from a new large-scale study indicate that standard techniques for colon polyp detection are much less effective for women than men.

The results from the CONCeRN (COlorectal Neoplasia screening with Colonoscopy in average-risk women at Regional Naval medical centers) study are alarming because many insurers require women to use standard screening tools and do not offer colonoscopy, which the results indicated is the preferred colon cancer screening method in average-risk women.

According to the study, which appears in the May 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, standard screening tools, such as flexible sigmoidoscopy, miss 65% of advanced pre-cancerous polyps compared to missing 30% in men with similar tools.

"With heart attacks and other diseases, we know that men and women develop symptoms differently and require different approaches-and colon cancer screening should be no exception," says lead author Phillip Schoenfeld, MD, assistant professor in the Division of Gastroenterology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, in a news release from the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center.

"While fecal occult blood testing and flexible sigmoidoscopy are less expensive, faster and require no sedation, 65% of women with advanced pre-cancerous polyps in our study would have lesions missed if these were the only screening tests performed because pre-cancerous polyps are found deeper in the colon in women," Schoenfeld said.

To view the news release, click here.

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Ambulatory Safety Monitor!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive