Feb. 23--DECATUR -- Excluding skin cancers, colorectal cancers are the third leading cause of cancer in both men and women in the United States, according to American Cancer Society data. Through regular screenings, advanced stages of the disease and even deaths are preventable, local physicians said.
The society estimated that in 2009, more than 106,000 new cases of colon cancer were diagnosed in the U.S., and more than 49,900 people died from colon and rectal cancers combined. March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
St. Mary's Hospital internist Dr. Gaurang Patel said that proper screening to locate polyps and precancerous lesions of the colon and remove them can greatly reduce one's risk of developing cancer.
Current recommendations state that starting at age 50, a person with no family history of colorectal cancer should receive a baseline colono-scopy. If the results don't indicate any abnormality, Gaurang said, he or she can wait 10 years before having another.
Those with a family history of the disease should get checked at an age at least five to 10 years younger than the age at which a sibling, parent or grandparent developed the cancer and every five years after that, said Decatur Memorial Hospital gas-troenterologist Dr. Victor Eloy.
Other screenings such as a fecal occult blood test, which looks for blood in the stool, a sigmoidoscopy, which offers a less-invasive view of part of the colon, and CT colonogra-phy, which provides a scanned view of the colon, can also detect some colon cancers but are less effective than colonoscopy, Patel said.
For more, see Wednesday's Herald & Review.
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