Anyone have a positive Cologuard test?

There’s a whole thread on this question “ Anyone have a positive Cologuard test?” with many replies!

So how did the sedative go?

you mentioned you were scared of that.

@melelliott50, it is scary to get a positive result. Your doctor will most likely ask you to get a colonoscopy since that is still the golden standard of care to find polyps and/or CR cancer. Try to think positively: it might be a false positive; if not, it will probably have allowed you to find the cancer at an early stage with the best chance possible of a successful treatment that would not need to be so heavy.
Sending a hug.

Everything Vero says is true.

I wish to add that colon cancer is very much treatable and survivable - even an advanced case like mine which was detected via Cologuard followed by a colonoscopy back in January 2021.

In short, don't panic, but get that colonoscopy soon. It's helpful to get facts from reliable sources on the internet - facts help to dispel fear.

I read of a new test being researched that is better and it's 85% accurate per early tests. This one is years off before we see it available, but the implication is that the Cologuard test isn't all that effective/accurate or they wouldn't be working to replace it with something better.

More on the Cologuard test:

"Cologuard can detect 92% of cancers but only 42% of large precancerous polyps. In other words, no, it is not accurate, especially when it comes to preventing cancer by detecting polyps."

"While it is better at detecting cancer than FIT (74% vs 92% for FIT test vs Cologuard), the false positive rate is higher. The Cologuard false-positive rate is 13%, and that rate increases as people age."

Source: https://www.gastroconsa.com/the-truth-about-cologuard-tests/

Hope that helps.

Cologuard is a screening test which is a fast, easy and non-invasive test but is subject to error and false positives. It's purpose is early detection of cancer and pre-cancerous polyps. Because it is subject to false positives, the standard of care of a positive case is to do a colonoscopy to take a look at the rectum/colon and take biopsies of anything suspicious. Often small polyps are excised during the colonoscopy.

While it's hard, don't panic. Wait until you've had the colonoscopy and gotten results back.

The big fear is colon cancer - advances have made this curable for the vast majority of patients.

You can handle this, be concerned, but don't panic.

I promised myself I'd loop back here and post in this thread after my recent colonoscopy since reading the comments helped me so much through my waiting period from getting an abnormal Cologuard result to my colonoscopy.

I decided to do a Cologuard for ease and didn't want the invasive procedure of a Colonoscopy. Plus, I hate being put under for anything, so I took the easy road. My Cologuard came back abnormal but luckily, I only had to wait less than 2 weeks for my procedure. But boy was it a stressful two weeks! Like many of you, I constantly worried and read everything I could find on colon cancer. It was a VERY rough time.

Well, I made it through the prep (I did the 2 bottles prep) but only barely. My prep was horrible. I got so dehydrated and had a jackhammer in my head. I also got sick on the way to hospital so instead of a twilight sleep I had to be intubated under general anesthesia. I won't go into the prep anymore here and will save that for another thread but advice to all of you - drink a TON of water to stay hydrated.

I cried up to being knocked out because I was so scared to hear the results. Luckily, it turned out I had 2 polyps. One small but one was fairly large at 15mm and flat and had to be piecemealed out. Due to that, I need to repeat the procedure a year from now just to make sure all of the polyp was out. But my doctor isn't worried, and I can breathe a sigh of relief. She thinks after next year if everything looks good, I won't have to repeat for another 3-5 years.

So, the Cologuard did do what it was supposed to do. It accurately showed that something was up and that something was polyps. In that regard, I'm glad I did it. But the worry I went through between the test and colonoscopy was overwhelming. In hindsight, I wish I had just gone in for the colonoscopy. I recommend just doing that to decrease the worry-factor. Yes, the prep is a pain (and in my case, really hard) but in the end, getting my polyps found and removed was a blessing.

Hope this helps some of you out there who are in the place I was at. Best of luck!

So pleased to hear these results however and you should check with your oncologist about this but the color guard test looks for blood and tumor DNA the fact that it came back abnormal and that your polyp was of that size manicate that you had some differentiation in the cells of the polyp which were precancerous or on the borderline

Sorry just continuing from the previous post.... recommend you get the actual pathology report and review that with your oncologist in any case I'm sure they determined that the polyp did not go through the wall of the colon and therefore you have currently the best treatment plan for that type of situation in any case I know it's hard but try to face these issues objectively and diligently as you have and you will learn so much and have greater confidence in your own care

Sorry to hear you had a horrible experience with the prep, @suzb214 . Glad to hear that they found those two polyps and nothing more.

Will they do a biopsy of what they took out anyway?