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Around 5,000 people in Austria are diagnosed with colon cancer every year, and more than half of them die as a result of this third most common form of cancer. “But colorectal cancer is a type of tumor in which the occurrence of tumor precursors can be detected through timely screening and colon cancer can be prevented by removing them using a colonoscopy, also known as a colonoscopy,” says Bonni Syeda, internist and chairwoman of the specialist physicians section of the Vienna Medical Association.
Currently, only about 15 to 20 percent of people in Austria take advantage of a screening colonoscopy. With the planned structured colorectal cancer screening program with invitations by post – like breast cancer screening – this number can hopefully be increased and the high mortality rate reduced.
The colorectal cancer screening program provides the medical layperson with the freedom to choose between a screening colonoscopy and a rapid stool test (FIT). “We take a critical view of this because these rapid tests only work when an intestinal polyp – a precursor to cancer – is far advanced in size and there is already blood in the stool,” says Syeda.
Source: Nachrichten
