Gut Doctors Unhappy About Study Claiming Colonoscopies Might Not Be Necessary

Chances are if you've ever had a colonoscopy, you'd do anything to avoid it, but a new study suggests that it might not be necessary.

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that colonoscopies aren't all that effective at detecting colon cancer.

The procedure in which doctors insert a camera into a patient's rectum to check for colon cancer or other gastrointestinal disorders is common in the United States, but only recently has it been recommended for the general middle-aged population in Europe.

In countries like Norway, Poland, and Sweden, colonoscopies only resulted in an 18 percent lower chance compared to the US

There may not be as much need for colonoscopies as the medical industry thought.

The researcher who co-authored the study told CNN that the message may have been oversold for a long time.

The findings, which run counter to the warnings that encourage people to take colon cancer screenings seriously, has other doctors on the defensive.

The chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society said it's hard to know the value of a screening test when the majority of people don't get it done.

Doctors and researchers are giving a lot of praise to the study.

"Colonoscopies prevent cancer and deaths only if people do them" is the better title for the study. The study was more about invitation for colonoscopy than it was about effectiveness.

There was a 30 percent reduction in the incidence of colon cancer and a 50 percent reduction in deaths among the subgroup of people who got colonoscopies.

The debate about the NEJM study was so intense that the journal published an editorial by two American doctors who weren't involved in the study.

The doctors emphasized in the editorial that it's still important to check for colon cancer, even though the rate of detection is not very high.

According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer is the third-most-common type of cancer that kills in the US and is expected to kill 52,000 people this year.

If you have a family history of colorectal cancer, it's a good idea to get a regular colonoscopies.

Young people are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than older people.