Colon cancer awareness advocates hope to attract more at-risk groups with virtual screenings

If you are at risk for colon cancer due to your age or family history, why not get screened? The answer is often fear – of the colonoscopy exam itself, which requires sedation, or it could be the perception of what it might cost.

More insurers now cover the less invasive "virtual" exam. For many years, going under sedation for an optical colonoscopy was the best way to find growths called polyps, which left undetected may become cancerous.

Short of being able to remove troublesome polyps, less invasive virtual exams using CT Imagery without sedation can now do the job just as well and even faster.

"They can get an entire scan in less than the time it takes to take a breath. So basically, in one or two seconds, they can scan your entire abdomen and pelvis," said Dr. Kevin Chang, director of MRI at Boston University Medical Center.

Chang says the virtual option is recommended by the US Preventative Services Task Force so private insurers must cover it. "The last piece of the puzzle is just Medicare and Medicaid coverage," he said.

Now, he says, Medicaid and Medicare cover CT colonography for incomplete colonoscopies or contraindications for colonoscopies. "They haven’t taken that final step that the payers have already made years ago," Chang explained.

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. It has largely become an annual effort to reach high risk groups like Black Americans. They are at greater risk of dying from colon cancer than the white population.

"Their rates of screening are lower than the average public so there’s definitely a disparity," said Chang.

Screening is recommended beginning at age 45 for everyone and even earlier for those with a family history of the disease.

If the virtual exam detects one or more polyps, then a colonoscopy is still needed to remove it before it develops into cancer. "Most of the time, the vast majority of time, you will not need the optical colonoscopy," said Chang.

The intent, he says, is to get more people screened before colon cancer has a chance to take another life "and to let them know that there are options other than just optical colonoscopy screening," said Chang.

He says the traditional optical colon-cancer screening is still the best option if pre-cancerous polyps are detected. They can be removed without needing a second procedure. Chang says, "90 percent of patients that get the virtual colonoscopy don’t have to get the optical form."