Saturday, January 1, 2011

Can you do home tests for checking for colon cancer


Can you do home tests for checking for colon cancer?
I heard that you could & i would much prefer that way.Please help & no stupid answers,please?
Cancer - 6 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
This is no place to find a medical diagnosis. You need to find a source for medical consultation that will give you some confidence in the findings. The only way to detect cancer is with a surgical biopsy, and sometimes even those are not 100% accurate. I have had experience with various medical resources including the Mayo Clinic, Sloan Kettering, Northwestern University, etc. From personal experience, the resource that provides the most competent cancer diagnosis and treatment is the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. I would urge you to get a referral and make an appointment as soon as you can.
2 :
No. You will need xrays and a body scan by your doctor. My mother died of colon cancer. Not pretty. If you think you need help, see a doctor right away. Colon cancer is one of the easier to cure cancers if it is caught in time.
3 :
If you have your own colonoscope, then you might be able to do it. It's more comfortable in a medical facility, though. If you gave yourself a sedative, it might make it difficult for you to navigate the colon safely. Without the sedative, it would be quite painful. Go get it done. You'll be glad you did and wonder afterward what you were making such a big deal about. Any test that checked for cancer cells would only reveal a true positive after it was too late to do anything about it.
4 :
Technically, yes you can. Last year CVS Pharmacies heavily advertised a free home colon cancer screening test. I picked one up to take to a meeting with me to show my GI docs. I no longer have the test as we tore it up in the meeting. It was easy to use, but it didn’t exactly test for cancer it checked for occult blood in the stool which is an indicator for colon cancer. I completely understand why you would rather have a home test. I think we all would, but please consider a colonoscopy instead. I cannot tell you how many lives I have seen saved this way. So many times a tiny cancer is found in a polyp that was completely removed during a colonoscopy and that was the complete cancer treatment. No chemo, no surgery, no radiation…nothing else. No other cancer screening test can do that.
5 :
I've done the occult blood test and it is easy, but it is much less accurate. A colonoscopy is not my idea of a fun morning, but it really isn't too bad. And the information provided is much greater. Small problems can be dealt with immediately.
6 :
YES Bobbilee, and it's a good idea. It would be a good idea for many people to check for occult blood in the stool on a regular basis after age 45 or 50. If the stool occult blood tests are regularly negative, your chances are fairly good that a colon cancer is not actively growing. Of course it isn't as good as screening colonoscopy, but it is very easy to do. Your doctor may have the hemoccult cards that you can use yourself at home. This might save you the expense of the colon cancer screening kit at the pharmacy. I would give these hemoccult cards to my patients at no charge when they were interested and willing to check themselves.






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Posted by Colon Cancer at 4:14 PM