Each year around 17,000 Australians are diagnosed with the disease and around 93 per cent of these people are aged over 50. Source: Getty Researchers from UniSA’s Cancer Epidemiology and Population Health found that having one pre-diagnostic colonoscopy was associated with a 17 per cent reduction in the number of deaths, two pre-diagnostic colonoscopy procedures was associated with a 27 per reduction and 45 per cent for three or more. Meanwhile, the study revealed that 37 per cent of the 12,906 patients analysed had pre-diagnostic colonoscopies and were more likely to live longer than those who were diagnosed after experiencing bowel cancer symptoms. Ming Li, one of the study leaders, said those patients who had pre-diagnostic colonoscopies showed a “significant increase” in survival. “The risk of colorectal cancer death reduces step-wise with increasing numbers of colonoscopy examinations before symptoms appear, cutting the mortality rate from 17 per cent to […]