Michael F. Driscoll, M.D., medical oncologist answers the question, when should I get a colonoscopy?

Screening for colon cancer usually involves colonoscopy so the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all people have average risk undergo colonoscopy at age 50.

For certain populations that have a higher risk, so let's say populations where they have a first-degree relative who has developed colon cancer before the age of 60. Those folks would typically get a colonoscopy from the age of forty on, or ten years prior to the first degree relative who developed the cancer.

So, after that first screening colonoscopy let's say you know for your fiftieth birthday yougo for a colonoscopy. It's not something pleasant but it's something everyone needs to do because colon cancer is one of these cancers that’s over ninety percent preventable if we undergo screening colonoscopies

So, typically if you're fifty years of age you go get your screening colonoscopy done and they don't find any abnormalities such as polyps which is how this typically starts. No polyps, no abnormalities then you get screened once every 10 years.

If there is a polyp that's found, let's say, then depending on the malignant potential of the polyp, meaning that its ability to potentially turn into cancer, your surgeon or gastroenterologist may recommend to screen as close a time interval as maybe six months and anywhere up to three to five years after that.


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