The doctors recommend performing a colonoscopy to detect cancer affecting the colon or the rectum. Usually, after 40 years of age performing colonoscopy is wise as the men of this age group tend to develop a small grape-like structure or a polyp in the colon or the rectum region. Although this structure is mostly harmless, doctors remove it through colonoscopy. These polyp structure classified into the group of adenomas is threatened to have turned into cancerous cells. Therefore, it is suggested to go through the regular procedure of colonoscopy to avoid developing any form of cancer during 40 years of age and after.
What is the frequency of undergoing colonoscopy?
Nevertheless, there is no need to going through the test procedure every now and then. No matter how helpful the procedure can be in detecting cancer, when colonoscopy is performed on a regular basis it does not yield any beneficial results. Therefore, it is advisable to conduct the test every once in a decade beginning from 40 years of age, especially in men.
Generally, a person with average risk factors and no family history of cancer is advised to go through the colonoscopy procedure at the age of 50 and above. However, the ones with high-risk factors should start as early as 40 years of age. According to the latest studies, the people born in the year 1990 possess double the risk of suffering from colorectal cancer as compared to the ones born in the year 1950. Latest researches show that more and more people are being diagnosed for colorectal cancer under the age of 50.
What are the diseases detected through colonoscopy other than colorectal cancer?
Other than the detection of cancer, colonoscopy can also detect diseases like ulcerative colitis and inflammatory bowel diseases. With the early identification of these diseases, it saves you from undergoing painful and damaging symptoms that involve bleeding and scarring of the colon. Also, these diseases have shown evidence of increasing potential risks of colorectal cancer in men.
If you are a male above 40 years of age and are undergoing symptoms of inflammatory bowel disorders, make sure to discuss it with your doctor. If you are advised to undergo colonoscopy, you must do it. According to some of the latest studies, when doctors perform colonoscopy they remove the cancer-causing adenomas detected during the test, which automatically reduces the chance of death caused by colorectal cancer by more than 53-percent. A quick colonoscopy has found to have saved many lives.