EON

Toronto - Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of men like the word colonoscopy. So news that a new study has confirmed the effectiveness of the CT or virtual colonoscopy would seem like a welcome relief.

Lead researcher, Dr. C. Daniel Johnson, of the Mayo Clinic, reports that a virtual colonoscopy can catch 90% of polyps that measure 10mm or more in diameter. That’s the same accuracy as a regular colonoscopy.

Although smaller polyps of 5mm or less were only caught 65% of the time by the CT scan.

The CT colonoscopy scan can also spot abnormalities outside of the colon unlike the traditional invasive colonoscopy.

While I don’t want to discourage men over 50 from getting regular colon screenings, the new technology only takes part of the sting out of the experience.

For either type of colon inspection to be effective, the colon must be cleansed. This involves a period of fasting before your scheduled visit. Unfortunately for both types of colon checks, it also requires a cleansing enema to physically flush out the colon and expose the walls of the large intestine for inspection.

Furthermore, as Dr. Robert Fletcher of Harvard University told WebMD, about 1 in 6 patients undergoing a CT colonoscopy, something will be found which then requires a traditional colonoscopy- which can mean a second colon cleansing.

So although the accuracy may be virtually the same, from a patient’s perspective, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between invasiveness of the procedures when taken as a whole.