The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rejected requests to cover virtual colonoscopies in 2009 citing, in part, a lack of evidence of the imaging technique for Medicare-aged patients. But a new study suggests it’s as good at finding cancerous growths, and as safe, as it is in younger patients.

The study, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, examined records of 1,410 patients 65 years and up who underwent a screening or surveillance CT colonography — that is, a CT scan of their gut to check for cancers or abnormal masses.