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A local colon cancer survivor says she's living proof Dental assistant Tonya Brinson is a colon cancer survivor. Brinson was diagnosed in 2007 when she was only 41 and when her son was a young boy. She called a specialist when she started bleeding. “Within a week of that time, he set me up with a colonoscopy, and thank God he did that," Brinson said. "He saved my life.” A study in The New England Journal of Medicine presented hard evidence that colonoscopies prevent death. The test gives a doctor the ability to see the colon and remove any suspicious...

BOSTON (CBS) – The national health care reform law requires insurance companies to cover 100% of the cost of screening tests for dozens of potentially deadly diseases. But thousands of patients are finding out the hard way that free doesn’t always mean free. When Jim Dungee had his first colonoscopy, doctors found several polyps, which are a precursor to colon cancer. “Therefore, I had to come back in three years,” he said. The three year mark was back in December. Knowing the test could save his life, Jim did not hesitate to make an appointment. He even called his insurance...

ObamaCare is supposed to force insurers and Medicare to provide preventive services at no charge to the patient. Colonoscopy is considered a preventive service, thus there should be no out-of-pocket costs for getting one. Turns out, though, that ObamaCare is having some unintended consequences: (T)here’s a wrinkle in the highly touted benefit. If doctors find and remove a polyp, which can be cancerous, some private insurers and Medicare hit the patient with a surprise: charges that could run several hundred dollars.

Colonoscopies are gross and scary enough on their own without cockroaches being introduced into the mix – but the photograph that you see before you is of exactly that: a cockroach in someone’s colon, a live one no less. A 52-year-old woman with a history of depression was referred by her primary physician for colorectal cancer screening. She had no family history of colorectal cancer and a review of systems was positive for abdominal bloating. Bowel preparation was done using 4 L of polyethylene glycol the evening prior to screening colonoscopy. The procedure was uncomplicated with no gross mucosal pathology,...

On 23 April I had a routine colonoscopy, and found out that I had cancer. I knew then I’d have to write this column once I knew the outcome. I had 25 days of chemotherapy, simultaneous with radiation therapy, followed by surgery on 11 August. The pathology reports came back yesterday. They were, as my surgeon said, ‘the best possible, given the circumstances.” They were clean margins and clean lymph nodes. The margins are the areas all around the site of the surgery. The lymph nodes are where cancer usually spreads first, from its original site. In laymen’s terms, I...

Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers have discovered that routine blood tests can provide an early warning for colorectal cancer. Anemia, a common blood disorder characterized by low hemoglobin levels, has long been associated with those suffering from colorectal cancer. It doesn't happen suddenly, however - and Tel Aviv University researchers say they have found that gradually decreasing hemoglobin levels can actually indicate a potential for colon cancer years in advance. Graduate student Inbal Goldshtein, who works with Dr. Gabriel Chodick and Dr. Varda Shalev of TAU's School of Public Health and Maccabi Healthcare Services' Department of Medical Informatics, says that...

The sub-head is even worse: "Katie Couric Will Be There Wednesday as He Undergoes the Procedure." Maybe she is going to do a "live remote" from inside the colon walls. She's pretty short. But, we wonder, why not stay and do the Evening News live from inside the colon? It certainly would give the Tiffany Network a new perspective. They might finally find Jimmy Hoffa or their lost dignity. more here

Yesterday's post looked at the issues relevant to health-care reform raised by the fact of the president's recent annual physical, starting with the act of getting an annual physical exam in the first place. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has long recommended that rather than a lock-step, one-size-fits-all approach, periodic health screening be conducted according to individualized factors. "This year's examination focused on evidence-based screening prevention and primary care, targeted to the president as an individual and his occupation," the exam's final report stated. And indeed, the president, who is 48, was too young to warrant much in...

WASHINGTON — Nearly half the people who need potentially lifesaving checks for the nation’s second-highest cause of cancer deaths - colorectal cancer - miss them, despite years of public efforts to make colon screening as widespread as tests for breast and prostate cancer. The dreaded colonoscopy may get the most attention but a cheap, at-home stool test works, too - and when California health care provider Kaiser Permanente started mailing those test kits to patients due for a colon check, its screening rates jumped well above the national average.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A powerful House committee chairman with a central role in President Barack Obama's global warming and health care legislation has been hospitalized. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., was not feeling well Tuesday and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for "routine testing," spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot said Wednesday.

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Dave Barry's Colonoscopy Journal: > > I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis . Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, "HE'S...

An easily overlooked type of abnormality in the colon is the most likely type to turn cancerous, and is more common in this country than previously thought, researchers are reporting. The findings come from a study of colonoscopy, in which a camera-tipped tube is used to examine the lining of the intestine. Generally, doctors search for polyps, abnormal growths that stick out from the lining and can turn into cancer. But another type of growth is much more dangerous, and harder to see because it is flat or depressed and similar in color to healthy tissue. Japanese researchers became concerned...

Dave Barry: A journey into my colon -- and yours OK. You turned 50. You know you're supposed to get a colonoscopy. But you haven't. Here are your reasons: 1. You've been busy. 2. You don't have a history of cancer in your family. 3. You haven't noticed any problems. 4. You don't want a doctor to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your butt. Let's examine these reasons one at a time. No, wait, let's not. Because you and I both know that the only real reason is No. 4. This is natural. The idea of having another human,...

I turned 42 years old yesterday. There are a few ways of looking at this age. A pessimist, of course, would say that I'm already halfway to 84. On the other hand, there is some significance attached to this age. For example: I'm twice as much fun as a 21-year-old; I'm young enough to be naughty and old enough to appreciate it. My age also happens to be the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. It isn't so bad. Except maybe when I try to get into/out of my car, chair, bed, etc. and make...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush had five polyps discovered and removed during a routine colon cancer test Saturday, the White House said. They were small and "none appeared worrisome," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters after the colonoscopy, performed at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. Further tests will be conducted on the polyps, he said. At 7:16 a.m. ET Bush, 61, invoked Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to voluntarily transfer his powers of the presidency to Vice President Dick Cheney while he was unable to discharge his duties during the colonoscopy procedure. e...

President Bush temporarily will transfer power to Vice President Dick Cheney while Bush has a colonoscopy Saturday.

For years, patients and many doctors assumed that a colonoscopy was a colonoscopy. Patients who had one seldom questioned how well it was done. The expectation was that the doctor conducting the exam would find and cut out any polyps, which are the source of most colon cancer. But a new study, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, provides a graphic illustration of how wrong that assumption can be, gastroenterologists say. The study, of 12 highly experienced board-certified gastroenterologists in private practice, found some were 10 times better than others at finding adenomas, the polyps that can...

WEDNESDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- OsmoPrep tablets (sodium phosphate monobasic monohydrate and sodium phosphate dibasic anhydrous) have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to cleanse the bowel before a colonoscopy, a test to detect colon cancer. The tablet's maker, Salix Pharmaceuticals, said OsmoPrep had been approved for people 18 and older as an alternative to high-volume liquids taken before the procedure. In a statement, the company cited a Mayo Clinic study's conclusion that unwillingness to take a bowel preparation was "the single largest barrier to colorectal cancer screening." Still, more than 10 million uses of bowel...

I just heard Tony Snow say he has colon cancer.

Because one celebrity colonoscopy just isn't enough, NBC's "Today" show has scheduled its second celebrity colonoscopy for April 2. In so doing, "Today" has effectively cornered the market on celebrity colonoscopies -- a stunning blow to rival "Good Morning America" at ABC News. Having already made a TV star out of Katie Couric's colon in 2000, NBC News has rounded up the colon of jolly weatherman Al Roker for this year's experiment in uncomfortable-making television. But because it's all about Katie, Couric will be with him every step of the way, NBC News assured us in its announcement. Yes, Roker...

Man almost bled to death as a result of a colonoscopy.

TV is the Master of Captain RibMan's Universe:Polyp-Alooza!

By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush ( news - web sites) said he will briefly transfer the powers of the presidency to Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) on Saturday while under sedation for a colon screening. Photos AP Photo For only the second time, the 25th Amendment of the Constitution will be invoked and Cheney will be acting president for "a matter of hours," White House counsel Al Gonzales said after the surprise announcement. Bush, who turns 56 next week, said doctors recommended the procedure — a colonoscopy — because...