Scared of colonoscopy results

[yolanda444]

I am a 33 yr old female and  was wondering if this was really true. I had a colonoscopy about two weeks ago and a polyp was removed the doctor told me that if i would have waited another six months it would have turned to cancer. The biopsy showed...The tissue consists of polypoid sections of colonic mucosa having a tubular and adenomatous configuration of the glands. There are areas of mild to severe epithelial dysplastic alterations No malignancy was identified. My question is, does it seem like something to worry about in the future? Will this come back again? Was this really something that would have turned to cancer if i would have waited longer? Is this pretty common in people my age?

[yolanda444]

Thank you so much for responding. It has been very scary to think of what the results would have been if I would have waited until I was 40.  My family has a long history of colon polyps and cancer along with FAP.  The reason why they gave me the colonoscopy was because I am anemic. My doctor thinks that removing the polyp will take care of that. My GI doctor wants me to have another colonoscopy in three yrs. Again I want to thank you for your response.

[CalGal]

I think sometimes that docs may automatically spit out 'it's a good thing you did it now - in another 6 months it could have been..................' Perhaps it's a good way to get our attention and to point out that we should remember to make sure to have all the tests at the proper times.........who knows.

However, if you put the time frame aside, in general your doc is right. This is something that you should have checked in the future. When a doc starts to see the terms tubular and adenomatous coming back on biopsy reports it does mean the tissue has the ability to move forward into undesirable configurations like cancerous conditions.

I believe 33 is a bit young to have something like this, but the good this is that it was caught and you now know that you'll need to monitor the situation. You might also want to check with your family and see if there's any family history of lower GI issues. Check with your doc to find out what he would recommend as far as subsequent screening.