[FR_addict]

“I agree with this. Doctors wanted to schedule my 97 YO mother for a colonoscopy — no symptoms, no problems in that area. Chance of perforation would be high. I said HELL NO.”

According to the article, they are talking about 65 years and older. That's a lot younger than your 97 year old mother.

[steve86]

Most of the commenters here are outright rejecting cost-benefit analysis, as though it is some kind of devil's work. But one can't ignore the costs and focus only on potential benefits. We can't all have every test every day nor would we want to. It is very important to note that costs are not just dollar costs, but medical complications as well. The more often you do an invasive screening (at any age) the more likely it is that a medical complication will arise.

The study looked at frequency of screening over different patient ages and what the cost-benefit would be of shorter or longer screening intervals for different age patients. Most people here would agree that scheduling ordinary people for a colonoscopy or pap smear every 30 days would be excessive at age 50 or 70. Why? because the dollar costs would be high, the chance of an infection or perforation for a given patient say after a year or 12 colonoscopies would be quite high, and the screening benefit compared to say a three year scheduling interval would be modest.

One of the things the study looked at was 3 year vs. 5 year vs. no screening at all.

As compared with no screening, guideline-based screening colonoscopy prevented 14 cases of colorectal cancer and 7.7 cancer-specific deaths, and resulted in 63.1 life years gained per 1,000 beneficiaries screened. In contrast, a 5-year screening interval led to prevention of an additional 1.7 cases of colorectal cancer and 0.6 cancer deaths and a gain of 5.8 life years per 1,000 beneficiaries screened.

"To achieve this relatively small added benefit, 783 additional colonoscopies had to be performed, causing 1.3 additional complications," the authors noted.

Reducing the screening interval to 3 years and increasing the duration of screening to age 85 prevented fewer cancers and cancer deaths and further reduced the life years gained per 1,000 patients screened, they added.

I don't see the satanic intent here, just realistic analysis. Also didn't see where anyone is advocating that people be prevented from paying for more frequent screenings if they care to.

Personally, I get none.