Diseases & Conditions
When to stop colorectal screening
Q. I'm 76 and I have had three normal colonoscopies for routine colorectal cancer screening. Am I done now?
A. Recommendations for screening tests like colonoscopy usually state an age to start being screened, but when to stop is more of a gray area. Whether to continue screening depends on your overall health and how likely it is that you are still at risk for the disease. Remember, screening tests are performed to look for a problem years before it would likely appear. Colonoscopy, for example, detects the precancerous polyps that appear many years before the polyps turn into cancer.
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