Intestinal diseases have become common in many people around the world, especially since they are magnified by the disadvantages of the modern world in which we live. Also, medical innovation in medical tests and examinations is constantly evolving. Among these exams, we find colonoscopy.
Colonoscopy or colonoscopy is an examination that can explore the inner lining of the large intestine through a probe called colonoscope, to possibly detect lesions in the colon.
More than one million colonoscopies are performed each year to detect colorectal cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer deaths. With this procedure, the examination can be practiced either, to make a diagnosis on a possible tumor, or to prevent ulcers or polyps of the colon. The latter are characterized by benign tumors that develop on the mucous membranes of the colon and are a few millimeters. The risk of these polyps is to degenerate into malignant tumors.
The truth about the colonoscopy test
Colonoscopy is a multi-million dollar industry and statistics have shown that 14 million healthy people use colonoscopy to detect colorectal cancer. However, it can be dangerous or even deadly in some cases. Indeed, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine, the overall mortality of colonoscopy is 5% of cases and in about 2% of cases, complications related to this type of examination will require hospitalization.
The Telemark Polyp Study also found that overall mortality was higher in the colonoscopic colorectal screening group, with 55 deaths out of 400 subjects, than in the control group, 35 deaths 399 subjects.
Colonoscopy usually takes place under general anesthesia. Thus, there are complications related to anesthesia including cardiovascular and respiratory complications. But that's not all, according to a survey of Medicare, 130 deaths are observed each year following complications due to either perforation of the intestine or severe bleeding. These complications are all the more frequent in subjects of a very advanced age.
Moreover, in case of non-sterilization of the colonoscopy material used, there is a possible possibility of infections including HPV, HIV, Helicobacter pylori, salmonella, mycobacterium tuberculosis, hepatitis C, hepatitis B, the influenza virus, Aeruginosa, Pseudomonas, E. Coli or Jakob disease.
It should also be noted that virtual colonoscopy is called into question in view of exposure to radiation emitted during the examination, which can be extremely harmful to health.
The alternative to colonoscopy
There is another alternative to colonoscopy. This is the fecal immunochemical test, also called (TIF). It is a test that is safe and does not cause any damage to the body. It is an alternative that is moreover, inexpensive.
This test consists of looking for the presence of blood in the stool to detect colorectal cancer. Professor David Khayat, head of the cancer department at Pitié-Salpêtrière, presented the benefits in the journal Sciences et Avenir. For example, according to an Annals of Internal Medicine publication, the TIF remains an easy and effective way that has yielded satisfactory results for patients and has diagnosed 80.4% of people with colorectal cancer; it is recommended by the U.S Preventive Services Task Force.
However, according to Tim Bayers, a researcher at the University of Colorado's Center for Cancer Control, TIF's cancer detection allows finding cancer and advanced adenomas, but not all. In addition, the early detection of cancer is not really established.