There's a New Colon Cancer Screening Option

Colon cancer screening is getting more flexible, and experts hope that means more people will actually do it. The American Cancer Society still advises that people with average risk get screened for the first time at 45, and it still calls colonoscopies the ideal screening method. But for the first time, an office-based blood test joins the list of options, alongside at-home stool-based testing.

More than 20 million eligible Americans remain untested, and the guidelines stress that blood tests should be a "last resort," as ABC News puts it, for those who would otherwise decline to get screened. As the Washington Post explains, the blood test, developed by Guardant Health and OK'd by regulators in 2024, "misses more precancerous polyps and early-stage cancers than other methods." But "the most effective screening test is the one that the patient completes," reads the ACS' updated guidelines.

Screening intervals vary by method: every 10 years for a colonoscopy and every one, three, or five years for other tests. The changes come as colorectal cancer rises in younger adults, with 1 in 5 new cases now in people under 55.