Except, because of false positives, you still only have a 5% chance of having colon cancer (although your point is that if you do, it’s further along and might be less treatable than if you’d caught it earlier with a colonoscopy.) Usually, all that happens is you buy yourself a colonoscopy that finds no cancer.
On the other hand, because of false negatives, you have a 0.06% chance of actually having cancer if your Cologuard is negative.
The above numbers are in a certain population. Your individual odds differ depending on a lot of factors. But say those odds do apply to you. The question is, is it worth doing the whole prep and colonoscopy when the Cologuard, if negative, is 99.94% likely to be a true negative? And if positive, a 95% chance it’s wrong and you are cancer free?
The real risk of using Cologuard is simply that you may have to undergoing an unnecessary colonoscopy and they are not without risk themselves. But the alternatives are doing the colonoscopy in the first place instead, or doing nothing, which is inadvisable. I view the Cologuard as an intermediate option to consider.
The Cologuard false results are a snapshot in time; one must think about
lifetime risk, which is 4-7% (in the population referenced below), and increasing risk with age, and affected by race, lifestyle, family history, etc. The longer you go not doing the eyes on colonoscopy, the more you’re gambling that you don’t end up with the poop bag.
Like all medical decisions this should be made by individual choice with one’s own doctor. There is no right or wrong for everyone.
https://retroflexions.com/endoscopy...colon-cancer-after-a-positive-cologuard-test/
Propofol is wonderful stuff. I remember feeling a desperate need to tell the nurse that the clock was suddenly moving around on the wall...the next thing I knew I was waking up from what felt like 8 solid hours of sleep even though it was no more than 30 minutes.
