Colonoscopy May Be Overused in Older Adults, Study Finds
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Older U.S. adults may get too many colonoscopies, costing Medicare an estimated $500 million a year and putting patients at an increased risk of side effects such as bleeding, researchers found.
About one-quarter of colonoscopies in Medicare recipients ages 70 and older may be inappropriate based on screening guidelines, according to analysis of insurance claims data released yesterday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.