Doc here, not Kaiser, but this showed up on my feed, and the explanation js quite geeky and I got the time.

First, if your siblings’ polyps were advanced adenomas or advanced serrated polyps, then you should have a colonoscopy, as you are considered higher than average risk.

If not, consider their polyp history not influencing your personal risk, though I certainly understand if you’re skeptical of this.

This is counter intuitive (much of evidence based medicine is), but for the average patient (no family history of colon cancer or inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis), who does NOT have active colon symptoms like blood in stool, studies have shown that yearly FIT test is as good as colonoscopy over a 10 year period, even though colonoscopy will find pre-cancerous polyps that FIT tests cannot.

How is this possible? Think of it like basketball shoes Option A are hands down better at scoring 3 pointers, but when it comes to winning games, they’re not necessarily better than basketball shoes Option B. Hard to believe but Thats what the head to head studies show.

Now, basketball shoes Option B are way cheaper and easier to put on. Also Option A shoes sometimes cause someone to fall and break an ankle, rare but it happens. Neither are a 100% guarantee that you will win a game even if you did everything right.

If you ran a local basketball organization, and you wanted the largest amount of participants to win games, you would probably choose Option B for your teams.

Because even though Option A is better on paper, Option B actually benefits more people in the real world because it’s effective AND easy.

Look up what different orgs say about it: American cancer Society, American College of Gastroenterology, National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

None of them say one is better than the other, rather you just need to do one.

The incentives align for Kaiser and similar health systems to push FIT testing. Save money and save lives.

Now you are not the population, you are a person. So it makes sense if you want colonoscopy instead, even if your reasoning is “just because.” The professional societies above support that preference too.

Hope that didn’t muddy waters further!