Colonoscopies save lives. Doctors push back against European study that casts doubt

The findings of a big European study published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week seemed to cast doubt on just how beneficial a colonoscopy is in preventing colorectal cancer, which is a leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. The results have generated a lot of controversy and buzzy headlines in the popular press — such as "Screening Procedure Fails to Prevent Colon Cancer Deaths in Large Study."

But that's not the whole story.

A colonoscopy is a widely recommended tool for cancer screening that involves putting a scope into the colon to look for potentially cancerous growths, called polyps, and cutting them out. Sometimes these slow-growing polyps — or adenomas —to cancer, so by looking periodically and removing any polyps, the procedure serves as both a screening tool for cancer and an intervention to prevent a tumor from developing in the first place.