If you are over the age of 50 or know somebody who is, or if you have a family history of
colon cancer or know somebody who does.
You need to watch this video.
We're going to talk about something that kills over 50 thousand people a year.
This is Colon cancer, and it's the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States,
behind Lung and Breast cancer.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Colon cancer can be prevented and I'm going to show you how.
Coming up.
Welcome to Family Med, your medical home for practical and accurate information to help
your family make healthy decisions.
I'm Doctor Erik Richardson. My passion is helping you cut through all the health information
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Ok so today you heard me right we are going to tell you how you can pretty much prevent
you or your loved ones from getting colon cancer.
Anybody who has gone through it or knows somebody who has gone through it, knows that colon
cancer is a very difficult thing to go through.
The hard part about colon cancer is that once you start having symptoms the cancer is often
time very advanced and difficult to treat.
Common symptoms of colon cancer are: A change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea,
constipation, or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days
A feeling that you need to have a bowel movement that is not relieved by doing so
Rectal bleeding Dark stools, or blood in the stool
Cramping or abdominal pain Weakness and fatigue
Unintended weight loss. Certainly if you have any of these symptoms
get into your doctor right away.
Our point in this video though is to not have to wait until you get symptoms like that before
we do anything.
Our purpose today is to teach you how you can prevent you or a loved one from even getting
to this point.
To prevent colon cancer it's important to understand a little bit about how it comes
about.
Colon cancer starts as a little growth in the colon wall.
We call it a polyp.
Certain kinds of polyp's if left alone can turn into colon cancer.
The problem about these polyps, is that if left alone, over time can turn into a cancer.
So we don't want to leave them alone.
Prevention of Colon cancer is going to center around getting the appropriate screening.
We're going to go through the options here in a minute, but who needs to be screened?
Well, quite simply everybody at some point.
More specifically though, is most people recommend that you should start screening for colon
cancer at age 50 or if you have a family history of colon cancer in a sibling or parent, you
should start around 10 years before when they were diagnosed with it, whichever is earlier.
When we talk about screening it is important to realize that we are talking about people
who do not have symptoms.
If you have any of the symptoms we talked about you need to get to your doctor and have
them evaluated.
That's not screening, that is looking for a diagnosis.
So what are your options for screening?
There are three different approaches you can take with looking or colon cancer.
The first is unfortunately still fairly common and this is the "putting your head in the
sand approach".
These are the patients that say they feel fine, they are healthy,
they don't have a family history, so they don't need
to do anything about it.
Hopefully they will be o.k. over time, but these are typically the people who end up coming
to see me at some point with the symptoms that we listed previously.
This is not the group you want to be in.
The second two approaches are much better.
One of them we call a preventative approach and the other we refer to as an early detection
approach.
We'll save the best for last so for now we'll talk about the early detection approach.
This type of testing relates to doing some sort of testing with your stool.
There are two most common approaches with this.
One is a test that you do that looks for blood in your stool.
At our office we call it the Fecal Immunochemical Test or FIT test.
This test looks for hidden blood in the stool which can be an early sign of colon cancer.
This test needs to be done every year in order to be helpful.
Usually you are given a card by your doctor or the lab and you put some stool on it and
send it into be evaluated.
The second common stool test is one that you may see advertised.
This is the Cologuard test.
This test is done through a prescription from your doctor.
It's a stool test as well, but this looks for evidence of DNA of colon cancers and certain
kind of high-risk precancerous lesions in the colon.
This is a decent test and is recommended that you do it every 3 years.
It's not a perfect test, nothing is, but it does a good job in catching things early.
The Good thing about this, is that it is non-invasive, you don't have to do it as often as the other
stool test, however it is more expensive.
It's typically around $600 and not all insurances will cover this.
You'd have to check with yours on whether they do.
If you have a family history of colon cancer or symptoms then this test is not appropriate.
The other test that had come up and everybody was excited about was the CT Colonography.
This is the CT Scan or x-ray study that is looking for colon cancers.
Unfortunately this hasn't turned out to be as promising as we had hoped.
It also comes with the added problem that you still have to do the colon prep for it,
which for anybody who has done a colonoscopy knows is the worst part of the procedure.
The attempt with all of these approaches is to find cancers early before they can cause
a problem.
All of them can be appropriate so if you doctor thinks this is the best for you then go for
it.
You need to do something to screen.
The limitation though of all of these is they are all trying to catch it before the cancer
has advanced.
There is a better way for most people.
Certainly there are some that this may not apply to, but for the majority there is a
way that you can prevent colon cancer from forming in the first place.
This is by doing a colonoscopy.
A colonoscopy is a procedure where you do some sort of preparation by taking things
that will clean your colon out.
There are a few different ways to do this but it is very important that you do it well.
If you don't get a clear colon you can't get a good study.
Once you are clear the doctor who does this will sedate you so you don't know what is
going on.
They then take a small tube shaped camera and get a better look at your colon.
Now, how does this help you prevent colon cancer you may be asking?
We'll remember how we talked about the start of colon cancer begins with a small growth
in the colon wall.
If left alone, this polyp has the chance of turning into colon cancer.
Now the problem with polyps is they don't have symptoms.
You don't feel them, you don't know that you have them.
There isn't a way to know unless you go looking for them.
And unfortunately if you wait until you start having symptoms then it often times can be
too late.
So in a colonoscopy, they are able to get in the colon, and look around for these polyps.
If they find them, they can remove them right then, and you can potentially cure a cancer
before its even able to turn into one.
That's the beauty of this procedure.
Now are their risks, certainly.
Is it something that you'd want to do all the time?
Well no, but it is sure better than getting colon cancer.
The best part about it though is that if it is normal and you don't have a strong family
history of colon cancer, then you don't have to worry about it for 10 years.
Now, if they do find a polyp, depending on how many or what type it is, you may have
to do it more frequent.
So for a 20 minute procedure and a half day of your life you can prevent the third most
common cancer in the United States.
To me, its worth it, and hopefully through this I've convinced you of the same.
So go and talk to your doctor and see what kind of colon cancer screening is right for
you.
There are certainly exceptions but the vast majority of colon cancer cases can be avoided
if you just get the proper screening.
And best of all, it is one of the mandated covered screening tests, so typically it is
free.
So there are no excuses.
Go and get it done if you haven't yet, or get your parents or loved ones to get it if
they are due.
You don't want to regret not having done one, when I have to call you into the office to
tell you that your abdominal pain is colon cancer.
That is the worst part of my job.
I hope you found the information we presented today useful.
If you did, don't forget to like, subscribe and even hit that notification button as well
as share it with your friends.
This is key to helping me be able to continue to produce this kind of content for you
So until next time this is FamilyMed with Dr Richardson.
And remember-get your colonoscopy and don't forget to take care of your body because it's
the only one you have.