
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 20, 1994                   TAG: 9401200049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BOSTON                                LENGTH: Short

NURSES CAN PERFORM RELIABLE COLON TESTS

Nurses can perform a common screening test for colon cancer just as competently as doctors can, a study concludes.

The test, called flexible sigmoidoscopy, is widely used to examine the colon for growths called polyps that can be cancerous. It is ordinarily done by family doctors and specialists.

Dr. William Forrest Maule of the Ochsner Clinic in Baton Rouge, La., performed the latest study to see if nurses could take doctors' places to increase the test's availability and lower its cost.

Maule published results of a comparison in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Four nurses performed sigmoidoscopy on 1,881 patients, while two specialist doctors, gastroenterologists, performed the test on 730 patients.

Overall, they found polyps called adenomas in 14 percent of the men patients and 8 percent of the women.

"There were no significant differences between the nurses and the physicians in the proportion of examinations that were positive for adenomas or cancer," Maule wrote.

- Associated Press

by CNB