STUDY SAYS COMMON COLORECTAL SCREENING TEST OFTEN FAILS

A common screening test failed to detect potentially cancerous colon growths 95 percent of the time, falsely reassuring patients and doctors, according to a new study.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was conducted at 13 Veterans Affairs medical centers and involved 2,665 patients -- most of them men -- who were given the at-home test and the in-office test followed by a colonoscopy.

Researchers found that the digital, in-office test on stool samples was not as reliable as a six-sample test given to patients to do on their own at home -- although even that test detected potentially cancerous growths less than 24 percent of the time.