More than half of colon cancer deaths are preventable. Talk to your doctor about your cancer risk and prevention. Andrew Wolf, MD, discusses easy at home screenings that should only take 5 minutes to complete.

For more information, visit: https://uvahealth.com/services/colon-...

There are a number of options for colorectal cancer screening, beyond the colonoscopy, which is the most commonly chosen option. There are a number of home-based options, which are stool-based testing. One is called the fecal immunochemical test, or FIT test. Another is the guaiac-based testing, or stool guaiac card. And the third is the FIT DNA, or stool DNA test.

Each of these involves collecting a stool specimen at home, submitting the sample, either to your doctor’s office, or your hospital laboratory, or sending it in to the company that offers the stool DNA test.

Home-based screening, meaning stool-based screening, is an excellent option for people who don’t want to have a colonoscopy, for whatever reason. It does offer the convenience of doing it in your own home, on your own schedule. You don’t have to take off time from work. And for the FIT test, and for the stool DNA test, there’s no special preparation for the testing itself.

On the other side, it doesn’t offer as good an option for folks who want to find precancerous growths early, and have them removed. Colonoscopy does offer the opportunity for folks to actually have a test where early precancerous growths are found, and removed at the same time, so that cancer can be prevented during the screening process itself. The stool DNA test, which is the newest of the options, does have advantages and disadvantages. The advantages, it is somewhat more sensitive, meaning it can detect more early cancers and precancerous growths than the other stool-based tests, the FIT and guaiac tests. However, there are more false positives with that test. So, if the patient is trying to avoid a colonoscopy with their stool-based test, that may not be the best option for them.

The colonoscopy is done every 10 years, assuming the results are negative, meaning no precancerous growths or cancers are found. The stool-based testing is done every one to three years, depending on the test. So, if done every year, the fecal immunochemical test, or FIT test, and the stool guaiac test are almost as good as a colonoscopy at finding cancer early, as is the stool DNA test done every three years.

The most important colon cancer screening test is the one that gets done. We have a number of good options for colorectal cancer screening. It is important to do one of them. They offer a number of advantages and disadvantages, but there is always one that will be suitable for everybody. The key is to get one of them done.