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No need to repeat Colonoscopy until 5 years after first
screening
Newswise — Among people who
have had an initial colonoscopy that found
no polyps, a possible sign of cancer, the
risk of developing colorectal cancer within
five years is extremely low, a new study has
found.
“For that reason, once
someone has had a negative initial
colonoscopy, there is no need for that
person to have another colonoscopy sooner
than five years after that screening,” said
David F. Ransohoff, M.D., a professor in the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Medicine and senior author of the
study, published in the Sept. 18, 2008,
issue of The New England Journal of
Medicine.
The lead author is Thomas F.
Imperiale, M.D., of Indiana University, with
whom Ransohoff has collaborated on several
colonoscopy studies.
Ransohoff, also a member of
UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer
Center, said the latest study confirms what
most gastroenterologists already believed,
but it is the first large, formal study to
confirm this conclusion. The report is also
an important step to determine the
appropriate interval for rescreening, he
said.
“The current recommendations
call for rescreening 10 years after an
initial negative colonoscopy,” he said.
“Now, based on the
results of this study, we know that there’s
no need to rescreen sooner than five years
later. But we still don’t know exactly how
long the appropriate screening interval
should be, so that’s a question that future
studies should address.”
In the study, 2,436 people
were identified who showed no signs or
precursors of cancer after an initial
colonoscopy.
Of these, 1,256 or 56 percent
were rescreened five years later. None who
were rescreened were found to have cancer.
One or more adenomas (polyps) were found in
201 people (16 percent) and of these 16
people (1.3 percent) had advanced adenomas
(precancerous polyps).
Men were more likely than
women to have any type of adenoma and to
have an advanced adenoma.
“These findings suggest that
among persons who are at average risk for
colorectal cancer, rescreening colonoscopy
need not be performed sooner than 5 years
after an initial colonoscopic examination
with normal findings,” the study concluded.
This study was supported by a
grant from the National Institutes of
Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
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