http://www.bmj.com/b...o_Head.full.pdf
There does not seem to be an effect on overall mortality and colon cancer screening. Generally disease specific markers can be misleading. You really have to wonder what would happen in a well done study of low risk persons being aggressively screened and a control group of low risk persons not being screened at all and followed for 30 years or so and keeping in mind that hospitalizations are a major cause of death.
From the article above:
" This argument does not show that disease specific mortality is better than all cause mortality; indeed, it seems to concede the opposite point. It also assumes that huge trials would show a reduction in all cause mortality, whereas this is precisely what is in question. And it ignores the existing data that strongly support an absence of any effect of screening on all cause mortality, as, for example, in the case of bowel cancer screening."
https://www.usnews.c...death-in-the-us