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Last Updated: Oct 29, 2008 - 11:04:25 AM |
WEDNESDAY MARCH 5, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- Colonoscopies could miss the most dangerous types of pre-cancerous lesions in the colon, researchers warned Wednesday in a released report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Based on an endoscope, colonoscopies are used to examine the colon to see if there are any polyps, which could potentially develop to form malignant tumors.
The researchers from the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California found more than nine percent of the lesions that could become dangerous cancer are flat and hard to find.
The lesion of concern is a flat, non-polypoid colorectal neoplasm, which the researchers said are more common and more dangerous than thought. The results of 1,819 colonoscopies showed 9.35 percent or 170 of all growths are these flat, non-polynoid type.
Dr. Roy Soetikno and colleagues said this type of lesions was 10 times as likely as those easy-to-detect polyps to be cancerous.
Overall, about one percent of patients who have colonoscopies develop cancer within three years and the researchers believe some of cancer cases may develop from the flat lesions that are not detected with this technology.
Colorectal cancer was diagnosed in about 150,000 people in the United States and the disease and complications of the treatments for the disease killed 52,000 people last year.
Colonoscopies are recommended by the medical industry for older people to find polyps early and move them early to prevent them from developing into malignant cancer.
Those who want to prevent these pre-cancerous lesions from developing may consider following a diet full with plant foods such as fiber rich vegetables and whole grains and avoid high intake of meat and fat, a foodconsumer.org scientist suggests.
For more information on colonoscopies, read
Diagnostic Tests Folder:
Colonoscopy. Contains patient education fact sheets on seven diagnostic tests for gastrointestinal disorders.
digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/
colonoscopy/ - 23k -
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Colonoscopy
is the endoscopic examination of the large colon and the distal part of
the small bowel with a CCD camera or a fiber optic camera on a flexible
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Colonoscopy - 53k -
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