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The Effectiveness of Colonoscopy in Reducing Mortality From Colorectal Cancer
- Sanford D. Markowitz, MD, PhD;
- Steven H. Itzkowitz, MD; and
- Barry M. Berger, MD
- From Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH 44106; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029; and EXACT Sciences Corporation, Marlborough, MA 01752.
TO THE EDITOR:
The recent study by Baxter and colleagues (1) highlights that although colonoscopic screening decreases death rates from colon cancer, it has limitations, particularly with respect to preventing deaths from cancer of the right colon. Baxter and colleagues suggest that these limitations might reflect the technical difficulty of routinely reaching and identifying right-sided colonic lesions, which may be flat and harder to visualize or might have a different biology from more distal cancer. Indeed, it is well established, for example …
