Posts Tagged ‘Gastrointestinal Cancer’
Early diagnosis for high-risk individuals
The diagnostic tests are necessary in patients with higher risk of disease than the general population. Therefore, the study of high-risk patients will improve the results of screening tests for having a higher diagnostic yield in these people in which individual risk is considerable. There are two groups of patients considered candidates for early diagnosis required:
- Those who have a first degree relative (parent, brother/son/daughter) who developed colorectal cancer before age 45. The risk of colorectal cancer in these individuals is estimated at 1 in 10.
- Those who have two (or more) first degree relatives with colorectal cancer. The risk of colorectal cancer in these individuals is 1 in 6. Read the rest of this entry »
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These tumors are the ones most likely to be diagnosed through a screening program for many reasons: they are fairly common, the cure rates of surgery may exceed 90% if treated in early stages and, finally, in most cases evolve from premalignant lesions (polyps) that can be removed to prevent cancer progression.
Evidence of early diagnosis in the population
The most common is the detection of fecal occult blood (searching for blood in the stool that is not detected by the naked eye). The first drawback is the need to collect feces, but the main one is its imprecision. When the test is positive there is a 10% chance that the individual has cancer and 34% of this a polyp. Unfortunately, the test will be negative in up to 50% of patients with cancer (this percentage drops to 30% if repeated for 3 consecutive days). Read the rest of this entry »
Can preventive diagnostic methods to detect cancer before it causes digestive symptoms?
In medical jargon is called screening (in English, screening) or early diagnosis process performed by the doctor to find and confirm or refute the diagnosis of a disease in people who show no symptoms of this disorder. The aim is to detect tumors at an early stage so they can be treated with more success than if they were leaving forward. In Spain, as in other developed countries, there are programs for early diagnosis of breast cancer and cervical cancer for women. In the case of digestive tumors have also been proposed such programs. But each type of cancer should be considered separately by its distinctive features. The principles that must be met for a program of early diagnosis are:
- The disease must be sufficiently frequent in the population or group of people under study and its consequences have to be very relevant to the health of the person (otherwise, the benefit obtained from a single patient would not justify the discomfort caused to everyone else). Read the rest of this entry »