Having been diagnosed with prostate cancer does not make you immune to developing another cancer. Look specifically at me; I have now been diagnosed with five different, primary cancers. Not only do we remain susceptible to developing another, unrelated primary cancer, we also are at an increased risk of developing a secondary cancer that is related to our prostate cancer treatment.
This means that we all need to stay diligent, not only about our prostate cancer, but about the potential we all have of developing another cancer. One of the best screening tools we have for the detection of colon cancer, another very common and potentially deadly cancer, is a routine screening colonoscopy.
Colonoscopies themselves are not without some risks. Some men can have a negative response to the sedatives used during the procedure, there is always, although very small risk, of having the colon perforated by the colonoscopy scope and now we also learn about the possibility of increasing our risk for colon cancer by how the screening colonoscopy is performed.
In a recent study researchers, reviewed 76,810 screening colonoscopies performed over six years by 51 gastroenterologists at a large practice in Minnesota. They found that on average the colonoscopy withdrawal times lasted nearly nine minutes, but about 10 percent of the doctors had individual averages of less than six minutes.
The startling fact that they foun