March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, so by now you’ve probably heard messages to get yourself tested. If you’re like most people, the message has probably gotten lost in the long list of other tests “you should get.”
It turns out, though, this is now more than just a “better safe than sorry” campaign: A new study suggests that screening could cut U.S. deaths due to colon cancer by nearly half.
The study, published March 12 in the journal Cancer, suggests more than 21,000 of the approximately 50,000 deaths attributed to colon cancer each year can be avoided if screening were even slightly increased.
Of cancer that affect both sexes, colon cancer is the second-leading killer. Yet only 72 percent of adults ages 50 and older have been tested, and only 58 percent are tested regularly.
New screening goal can save lives
The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable, a partnership between the American Cancer Society and the Centers for Disease Control (also the group behind the new study), set out the goal of getting the screening rate above 80 percent by the year 2018 “” an increase of just eight percent that would cut deaths significantly.
Modern screening becomes less invasive
Calling modern screening methods like a fecal occult blood test or colonoscopy “the best opportunities to prevent cancer that we’ve ever discovered,” Dr. Richard Wender, chairman of the roundtable and a primary care physician, said more is needed to help beat the cancer’s “terrible and needless toll.”
The largely non-invasive and reasonably inexpensive tests can locate precancerous polyps and other abnormal growths in the colon that can be removed before becoming cancerous. Even after the growths have become cancerous, the screenings help catch them early in their development when they’re more successfully treated. Aside from the “big picture” goal of the 80-percent screening goal, the tests hold great promise for individual patients. Five-year survival rates for patients whose cancer was caught early due to screening is around 90 percent.
When to start colon cancer screening
According to American Cancer Society guidelines, you should start getting screened regularly when you turn 50, unless you have a personal or familial history of polyps or irritable bowel diseases. In those cases, your doctor would already have you set up for regular screening well before your 50th birthday.
From there, the interval of tests depend on the tests themselves.
Doctors suggest a colonoscopy every 10 years. A sigmoidoscopy or a CT colonoscopy “” also known as a “virtual colonoscopy” “” are done on five-year intervals, while fecal occult and immunochemical tests are done on an annual basis.
Which test you have is determined by your doctor once they weigh your risk factors and symptoms, like changes in bowel habits, bleeding, cramping or unexplained weight loss and weakness.
Waiting for the symptoms to present themselves is not the best course of action, said Wender.
“Waiting for symptoms is a mistake “” screening is intended for people without symptoms and is predominately aimed at finding and removing polyps. Remove the polyp, prevent the cancer!” he added.
