When I lived in Italy, the letter arrived regularly every other year in my mailbox. It was from the regional Azienda Sanitaria Locale (ASL), the regional health office, inviting me to participate in a free screening for cancer of the colon. The invitation had nothing to do with suspicious symptoms on my part; everyone between the ages of 50–69 received the same letter and the same instructions, with some regional variations.
In Lombardia, we were asked to bring the letter to a local pharmacy, where we would receive a “kit,” consisting of a small plastic tubelike container with a built-in spiral stick and a blank label. A short accompanying note explained that we should use the spiral to take a sample of our feces (only what would stick on the spiral), then close the top tightly, label the container, and bring it back to the pharmacy where we had retrieved it. If we couldn’t return the sample immediately, we were to put the container in the fridge and make sure to bring it back within two days.
From the time we returned it, we might wait several weeks for results. If the diagnosis was negative, a letter in the mail (pre-Covid correspondence was all by snail-mail) would announce that fact, congratulating me and reminding me to re-test in two years. I don’t know how fast the response was for those who tested positive but the…
