ColoGuard Warning

[skp]

While I am guilty of not posting for along time, I still come to this awesome site and read posts.

I am 73 and had a colonoscopy 10 years ago with only a few benign polyps. My internist said that I could do a colon screening test with ColoGuard instead of having a colonoscopy. Cool! I received the test and was constipated at the time so it took some effort to get the sample, but I did and mailed it back. Six days later my internist called me to tell me that my test was positive. What? It took over 3 weeks for a colonoscopy to be scheduled. I had the colonoscopy two days ago and did not have one polyp. Clean. The GI doctor who did my colonoscopy told me that my hemorrhoids were likely the cause of my positive test as ColoGuard will pick up a tiny bit of blood and call it positive for cancer. She said that she has never seen cancer with a ColoGuard test. I just learned that my 48 year old daughter had the same experience a year ago and yet had no polyps.

The ColoGuard reviews online are scathing; high false positive rates with the worry of having to wait to get an colonoscopy. I know the feeling. Also, some insurance companies will pay the $500+ for ColoGuard but then will not cover the colonoscopy. I don't yet know my insurance status with that.
People who posted complaints said that their GI docs said they were lots of money from ColoGuard. Some folks had been sent the test when their doctor never ordered it and then were harangued via text, email and phone for payment. All thought it was a scam.

ColoGuard boasts that they find 92% of colon cancer. What about the other 8% that might be missed? The false positive rate is 14% and increases with age.

The gastro group in my town now requires extra prep days for the colonoscopy. Three days prior to the all liquid day and drinking the dreaded prep, three days before that, one has to eat a very low residue diet (we all know that one) and drink Maalox twice a day as a laxative. The reason is the push for high fiber diets has meant that people were coming in without clean colons. I know two people who were sent home and told to come back the next day after drinking more prep cleanse.

[tex]

I hear you. Cologuard sounds appealing, but the results often leave a lot to be desired.

I don't know if Polly was still posting when you joined this forum, but Polly is a pediatrician who initially had a relatively high number of polyps on every colonoscopy, so that frequent colonoscopies were always required. As we recommend here, she began to take larger doses of vitamin D, and her subsequent colonoscopies showed no polyps. That's exactly why I'm convinced that an important key to the prevention of colon cancer is adequate vitamin D intake.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4229786/

Tex