THEL colorectal cancer it is, with 40 thousand new diagnoses a year, one of the most common cancers in Italy. But it is also one of the few for which preventive screening exists.
Colorectal cancer: the free test
And the fecal occult blood test, spy of polyps that could herald a malignant form and is offered free from National health system every two years to people between 50 and 69 years old. Is the exam equally effective for men and women?
The difference between men and women
Gender medicine studies, also published in Annals of the National Institute of Health, have in fact highlighted how the men are more affected by the tumor – probably because they are not protected from estrogen. Bad women develop a more aggressive form, right colon cancer, for which the test only raises the alarm at an advanced stage.
Colonoscopy or stool test?
Would it be better for women then maybe a colonoscopy? “The validity of the exam is not debated,” says Elisabetta Buscarini, director of the Gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy unit at the Ospedale Maggiore in Crema: “In addition to not being invasive, unlike colonoscopy, the test is very accurate, and has changed the history of the disease in Italy by reducing the incidence of cases and mortality.. It is true that one type of polyps, the “tight” ones, is more often located in the right colon, with the largest opening, and therefore may not bleed. But it affects both men and women. As for the colonoscopy is prescribed if the screening is positive or sooner if the person is at high risk of colon cancer, due to family history, alcohol or smoking abuse, obesity “.
iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED