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Even if you don’t display signs of colorectal cancer, it’s important to get regular colonoscopies as recommended by your physician. Most often, exams are recommended every 10 years, especially when you’re 50 years of age or older, when 88% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed. Here’s why colonoscopies are an important factor in colon care after you turn 50.

It Can Help Prevent Colon Cancer

Colonoscopies are one of the few cancer screening procedures that also works to actively prevent the formation of colorectal cancer, reducing the need for cancer treatments like colorectal surgical procedures. When done as recommended, colonoscopies detect precancerous polyps, abnormal growths that have the potential to grow into cancer. Since these polyps can take as long as 15 years to grow into cancer, having regular colonoscopies significantly reduces your risk of developing colorectal cancer. If one is found during your colonoscopy, it can be removed during the colonoscopy, preventing colorectal cancer from developing. The procedure to remove the polyps has minimal risks, so it’s performed as an outpatient surgery.

It Detects Cancer Early

colorectal surgeryEarly detection of polyps allows physicians to work to prevent cancer from developing, but if cancer does develop between screenings, then early detection is essential. The American Cancer Society has stated that colorectal cancers take several years to develop, so regular screenings increase your likelihood of detecting cancer in early stages and needing less invasive surgery to treat it, rather than more extensive surgical procedures. Early detection of cancers is important because it improves your prognosis and increases the chances of successful treatment, whether through colorectal surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.

Colorectal Cancer Is Common

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer—besides skin cancers—to affect both men and women in the United States, with more than 90,000 new cases expected in 2018. More than 50,000 deaths in the US in 2018 are expected to occur from colorectal cancer, but this number has been steadily decreasing in recent years. Screenings and advanced colorectal surgery technology are thought to be the main contributors to this decline, emphasizing the importance of colonoscopies.

 

If you’re searching for compassionate experts in the colorectal surgery field, then contact the medical professionals at Ozark Surgical Group in Mountain Home, AR. They’re experienced surgeons who are competent in a range of surgical procedures, including colorectal cancer treatments and screenings, biopsies, and outpatient surgery options. With a team of talented surgeons they’ll provide you with diagnostic and surgical care of the highest caliber, in a sterile, safe, and comfortable setting. View their colorectal surgery options online and then call them for an appointment at (870) 425-9120.

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