Updated guidelines from the US Preventive Medicine Task Force on colonoscopy have emerged. Annals of Internal Medicine 2008
All you folks age 77 who only expect to live to 84 can breath easier now. Colonoscopy (every 10 years) or FOBT (fecal occalt blood testing yearly) is recommended for all persons aged 50-75. Between 76 and 85 screening is only recommended if your life expectency is greater than 10 years. And if your above 85 just forget screening. Only pursue if there is a problem. I always wondered when it was time to stop screening…I have to let my 95 year old great-grandfather Jake know that he got out of it this year.
