Virtual colonoscopy can find significant medical problems outside the colonIn addition to finding colon cancer or polyps within the colon itself, virtual colonoscopy can screen the surrounding abdomen and pelvis for cancer and other serious conditions.
Five hundred men were examined with virtual colonoscopy -- computed tomographic colonography or CTC -- in a study at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco. Of those, 9 percent had clinically important findings outside their colon including aneurysms and suspicious masses in abdominal organs.
Men in the study included both those at average risk for colorectal cancer (39 percent) and another 61 percent at high risk. There was no significant difference in the number of additional clinical important findings in men of average or high risk.
The cost to follow up suspicious problems was extremely low, averaging $28,12 per CTC ezam. Radiation exposure for the exams was no greater than a non-contrast CT-scan of the abdomen and pelvis.
Judy Yee, M.D., Chief of Radiology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center led the study which now has more than three and a half years of follow-up. Her results are published in the August 2005 issue of
Radiology.Dr. Yee says,
"The chance of finding cancer outside the colon may be as significant as the chance of finding cancer inside the colon,"
Read the study abstract in Radiology.Read a news release from the Radiological Society of North American which publishes Radiology.
Read an article about the study in Science Daily.