Actor Ryan Reynolds has filmed his first colonoscopy to raise awareness of colorectal cancer, leading to the "potentially life-saving" removal of a polyp.
The video, posted to YouTube on Tuesday, shows Reynolds with fellow actor Rob McElhenney discussing a bet they supposedly made in 2021 that McElhenney would not be able to learn to speak Welsh.
The actors recently teamed up to buy Welsh football club Wrexham AFC, a process filmed for the documentary Welcome to Wrexham.
McElhenney fires off two sentences in his adopted tongue, outlining the terms of the bet — that Reynolds would make the film.
The Deadpool actor concedes he lost and the clip cuts to footage of him about to undergo the procedure.
In the United States, people are recommended to begin regular screening for colorectal cancer, also known as bowel cancer, at age 45, which Reynolds is now.
In Australia, people at average risk of developing colorectal cancer are recommended to undertake an immunochemical faecal occult blood test (FOBT) every two years from age 50 to age 74.
The tests are available for free for people in that age group through the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.
However, charity Bowel Cancer Australia is pushing for the federal government to expand the program's eligibility to include those aged 40 to 84, after witnessing a "steep increase" in bowel cancer incidence between ages 49 and 50.
Many of those cases are diagnosed at an invasive stage, indicating those cancers have been developing undetected for several years prior.
Colonoscopies are one of several follow-up tests that can be conducted if a positive FOBT result is returned.
A colonoscopy is a quick procedure that involves the insertion of a small camera via a long flexible tube through the anus of the person being examined while they are under anaesthesia, allowing doctors to make a visual diagnosis of potential cancerous growths or other issues.
'Potentially life-saving' procedure
Following Reynolds' colonoscopy, doctor Jonathan LaPook, a professor of medicine at NYU, tells the actor he found an "extremely subtle" polyp on the right side of his colon and was able to remove it on the spot — a move he says was "potentially life-saving".
"This is exactly why you do this. You had no symptoms," Dr LaPook says.
Having recently turned 45, McElhenney, best known as the co-creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, also agreed to undergo a colonoscopy for the video.
While preparing himself in the waiting room, he says he figures he "can't go wrong in terms of comparing myself to Ryan".
"They either find nothing, and that means my colon was cleaner than his, or they find a polyp and it's either bigger than his, which is awesome, or it's smaller than his, which means I had less of an opportunity to have cancer," McElhenney says. "Either way, I win."
The doctor ends up finding three small polyps in McElhenney's colon as well, describing them as "not a big deal" but saying it was "certainly a good thing that we found them early and removed them".
The video was made for US colon cancer awareness organisation Lead From Behind, which is on a mission to "make colon cancer famous", in partnership with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance.
While the colonoscopy process itself is not shown in the video, both actors are shown directly after the procedure remarking how quick and easy it was.
"So easy … I feel great," McElhenney says as he emerges from the anaesthesia.
"How's my hair?"
