Men, Women, and Colon-Cancer Screenings

The Wall Street Journal

Gents, a new study suggests you should be receiving screening for colon cancer before females, since you have an increased chance of both polyps and the disease itself.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, covered more than 44,000 Austrian screening-program participants, with an average age of about 61 years.

Across all ages, 24.9% of men and polyps or lesions and 8% had advanced polyps, vs. 14.8% and 4.7% of women. Looking at colon cancer itself, the incidence was 1.5% among men and 0.7% in women.

And the study found that men tended to develop polyps and tumors about a decade earlier than did women. “New screening recommendations concerning age should be reconsidered,” the study authors write, adding that further research is needed “to demonstrate the relative clinical effectiveness of screening at different ages.” Read More