Nonpolypoid Colon Cancer

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“The history of Modern Medicine is riddled with stories of discovery, skepticism, rejection, and sometimes, redemption and acceptance. For instance, the discovery of HELICOBACTER PYLORI by Dr. Marshall is a fairly recent example of initial rejection by mainstream scientific community and ultimate redemption (as recognized by the Nobel Prize).” David Lieberman, MD, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 5, page 1068, 2008

Ironically, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given for the power of l-arginine to reverse atherosclerosis and inelastic arteries in 1998. Comments on this will be saved for another day.

Today I want to talk about the scientific paper in the AMA journal noted above noting the presence of flat or depressed colon polyps that may have been missed in patients undergoing colonoscopy in the United States in the last two decades. If any of you have seen pictures of your colon during your colonoscopy you can see how hard it would be to see something lying flat in the colon. Think about seeing a “lesion” depressed like a divot in a golf course in your colon’s wall with that tiny tube with the light on it. That’s really tough.

That’s why the Japanese, the Swedes, Canadians the British and some in the United States have been using “special techniques” to find these difficult to detect lesions. Using these “special techniques”, these special problems are found 5 times as much as the polyps we hear so much about.

It is very hard to find the way around the colon but now that the situation has changed and you should think about what to do personally. People’s minds are like parachutes – they only function when they are open. Thomas Robert Dewar (1864 -1930).