Nearly all colorectal (bowel) cancers can be prevented by removing pre-cancerous growths called ‘polyps’ during a one-hour ‘screening’ procedure which will also relieve any symptoms caused by the polyps. You can return to work on the following day.
According to the UK National Health Service (NHS), most polyps produce no symptoms, but larger ones can cause blood or mucus in the toilet bowl, changes in bowel habits (diarrhea/constipation), or abdominal pain.
The most recent research (e.g. 2017 and 2020) suggests that screening should normally begin at age 45. It should begin earlier if you have a family history of colon cancer or polyps, or belong to a high-risk ethnic group (e.g. Afro-American or Ashkenazi), or have symptoms.
Yes, most polyps are not pre-cancerous; but the more important point is, as the NHS puts it, “Doctors believe that most bowel cancers develop from adenoma polyps.” Yes, screenings may also find early cancers; but a successful screening is one that finds and removes a pre-cancerous polyp, not one that finds a cancer.
You may first be directed to take a cheaper screening test, to give some indication whether you need a colonoscopy for actual polyp removal; but the possibility of polyp removal is what persuades people to get screened.
The benefit of early detection of cancer ought to be persuasive enough; but if you want to persuade people, you need to give them the information that they actually find persuasive, not the information that they ought to find persuasive.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force agrees that screening should begin at age 45, not 50 as previously recommended.
