Colonoscopies

[Guest guest]

Rush for Colonoscopies Taxes Health Care

2 hours, 48 minutes ago Add Health - AP to My Yahoo!

BOSTON - Recommendations from medical specialists that healthy adults

be screened for colon cancer has resulted in hundreds of thousands of

people seeking colonoscopies, producing long waits for the test and

straining hospital resources.

Yahoo! Health

Have questions about your health?

Find answers here.

" The demand is endless and limitless and beyond anyone's

expectations, " Dr. Brugge, director of endoscopy at

Massachusetts General Hospital, told the Boston Sunday Globe. The

hospital expects to conduct 25,000 colonoscopies and other

gastrointestinal imaging procedures in 2004, a 20 percent jump in one

year.

While statistics on colonoscopies are scarce, Medicare paid for

381,364 screening tests for healthy enrollees last year, more than

double the number two years ago.

The demand has created waiting lists of up to six months at some

hospitals. Others are able to meet the demand more quickly.

The Risk Management Foundation, which insures doctors affiliated with

Harvard Medical School (news - web sites), said some patients who

should have colonoscopies are not getting them.

Hanscom, the foundation's director of loss prevention, said

long waits may contribute to a new spate of lawsuits over

colonoscopies, because patients have more time to back out of the

test and doctors then lose track of them.

" It's evidence of a strained system, " he said.

Cancer of the colon, or large intestine, and the rectum is the third

most common cancer. It is also the second deadliest after lung

cancer, killing more than 57,000 Americans annually. One in 17 men

and one in 18 women develops colon cancer.

As medical specialists and celebrities have publicized the test,

hospitals are expanding to meet the demand.

Lahey Clinic in Burlington, for example, is fielding 1,800 requests a

month for colonoscopies, but can accommodate only 1,200 patients.

About two years ago, the hospital began scheduling patients on

Saturdays. This year, Lahey hired schedulers to work at night, so

that when a patient cancels, staff can scour the waiting list and

call someone to fill the vacated slot.

Boston Medical Center, which began in January to schedule

colonoscopies for Saturdays, projects that its doctors will perform

10,000 this year, more than double the number five years ago.

Still, medical specialists say, not enough people are getting

screened for colon cancer.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news -

web sites), 45 percent of men and 41 percent of women age 50 and over

had undergone a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy, according to the most

recent data in 2000. That means that millions more Americans should

have screening tests, and agencies like the CDC are trying to reach

them with information.