Dr. Tom Imperiale explains why physicians should be good stewards of colonoscopy resources.
Transcript:
We don’t have the capacity in our endoscopy units to screen an additional 20 million people with colonoscopy. If we have a large segment of healthy people age 45 to 49 deciding that they’re going to get colonoscopic screening, that could infringe on the resources available to screen older people who are at higher risk — people who have diagnostic indications. So, let’s say they’re FIT or Cologuard positive or they’re having symptoms. And then for the other group of people who have had adenomas removed, for whom periodic colonoscopy is required and has benefit. So this is another reason we need to be good stewards of colonoscopy and not let 45- to 49-year-olds flood the market. It’s up to clinicians to do some triage and use noninvasive methods unless they identify high risk features within this five-year age group.
