of colon cancer would lead to a recommendation that family members be screened by sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy at regular intervals and that stools be examined yearly for bleeding.
Quite a few cancer risk assessment programs are available for use by the general population. But it is important to understand that the programs are designed solely to give information about the increased risks for developing specific types of cancer.
Completing a risk assessment questionnaire is not a medical procedure and such programs do not constitute the practice of medicine. No physician-patient relationship exists. There is no physical examination, no blood tests or x-rays. Nor is any information provided beyond an estimate of the relative risks of certain types of cancers and general ways in which those risks could be reduced or specific cancers detected.
Widespread Screening There is a medical relationship with a physician when apparently healthy people have specific tests done to detect cancer in its early stages.
During these examinations, the doctor's attention is directed to specific sites that may harbor cancer. Which sites depend on the patient's case history. The larynx might be examined with a mirror, the lungs by chest x-ray, the bowel by endoscopy or x-rays and the pelvis by x-ray, ultrasound and physical examination.
Although there has been a great deal of information published on the usefulness of extensive screening of healthy people, the practice has not yet been widely accepted by the medical community nor, especially, by insurance companies and other third-party payers, because of costs.
