A large study performed on 2,600 men and women, which involved 15 medical centers, has revealed that virtual colonoscopies are highly effective in detecting large and medium-sized polyps that can further lead to colon cancer.

Results published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the non-invasive procedure can now be used for cancer screening, which could give rise to an increase in the number of people who decide to get screened, since the alternative is known to be highly unpleasant.

All the participants in the tests conducted by Dr. C. Daniel Johnson and his colleagues received both an old-fashioned and a virtual colonoscopy, 99% of them undergoing the two procedures the same day. Doctors found that the virtual screenings identified 90% of the polyps detected by the traditional colonoscopy. The latter entails the insertion of a tube with a miniature camera at the top into the patient’s large intestine, while he or she is under general anesthesia. The virtual procedure is both less invasive and less expensive, since it involves a Computerised Tomography scan of the patient’s lower body and does not require any type of anesthesia, which considerably reduces the screening’s cost. Nevertheless, a cleansing of the bowels is still needed beforehand in order for the polyps to be identified. Moreover, in case the virtual colonoscopy finds cancerous growths in the intestine, a traditional one is necessary for confirmation.

Colon cancer, also called colorectal cancer, is the third most common one in the Western world and also the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Statistics show that a number of 655,000 people worldwide die annually as a consequence of the polyps developing into this type of cancer.