> One thing is clear: Screening works. If you’re of the appropriate age, please get screened. If your tubes are acting funny, please get screened without delay.

> One thing is clear: Screening works. If you’re of the appropriate age, please get screened. If your tubes are acting funny, please get screened without delay. The best method and the level of benefit are debatable, but we know it helps. That's unfortunate, because it's a poor summary of the actual paper the article is discussing. If you bother to read the rest of the article, you'll see the actual summary of the trial, and it's pretty darned easy to interpret for yourself: https://asteriskmag.com/media/pages/issues/04/you-re-invited-to-a-colonoscopy/426b760313-1696013385/dynomight_temp01.png https://asteriskmag.com/media/pages/issues/04/you-re-invited... to wit: > The 18% reduction in colorectal cancer incidence was statistically significant, while the 10% reduction in colorectal cancer mortality and 1% reduction in overall mortality were not. (Those reductions are relative risks, which are on very small baseline numbers.) Then the article goes on for many pages about how American gastroenterologists do not agree...which isn't terribly shocking, considering the source of the argument. But a number of rebuttals are made, some of which are reasonable (i.e. colonoscopies are one of the few screening tests to actually do something to prevent disease, in the form of clipping polyps), and others of which are quite simply lies ("other studies have estimated larger benefits for colonoscopies" -- yeah, but those studies were bad, and this one was good, which is why we're talking about it!) Note that American gastroenterologists do a lot of colonoscopies, mostly without good evidence. This was the first major RCT in decades to consider the question at all. The other screening methods have even worse evidence, and certainly no good evidence at the young ages we do them in the USA (currently 40 in men; the studies are all in much older age groups). Overall, the NORDICC trial paints an incredibly ambiguous picture for the effectiveness of colonoscopy at preventing severe illness or death -- at the very least, the benefits are likely dramatically overstated. Discussing all of this, then turning around and claiming "it works" is an insult to evidence-based medicine. (FWIW, I'm personally torn on the meaning of the study. I just think that "one thing is clear" line is a particularly odious bit of "journalism" -- not the least because it confuses symptom-free screening with doing something in reaction to symptoms. The rest of the article is pretty fair, IMO, but that line is substituting the opinion of the author for an actual summary of the data.)