Hong Kong doctor warns that government colon-screening programme for elderly will not be 100pc accurate
Dr Ronnie Poon says high-risk people like those with a family history of the disease should consider a colonoscopy for greater certainty
A government programme to screen elderly people for colorectal cancer has around 80 per cent accuracy, meaning those with high-risk factors should not rely on the test alone, says a local expert.
Under a three-year scheme, the government plans to offer what is called a Faecal Occult Blood Test to determine whether there is blood in the stool of some 300,000 people aged 61 to 70 years old.
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While the screening is helpful in the early detection of colon cancer among people with no other symptoms, general surgery specialist Dr Ronnie Poon Tung-ping warned that there could be false positive and negative results.
“The purpose of colorectal cancer screening is to identify people who have colorectal cancer before they have any symptoms, so that treatment can start earlier,” said Poon, founder and chairman of the Liver Cancer and Gastrointestinal Cancer Foundation.
“But the public should be aware that all screening tests have their limitations and they are not 100 per cent accurate.”
He explained that there were factors affecting the accuracy of the stool test. He pointed to patients with colon cancer having no bleeding or the amount of blood being too insignificant to be detected.