Dr. Oz’s Colonoscopy Finds Pre-Cancerous Polyp: What Can He Teach Us?
(CBS) Dr. Mehmet Oz just might be the last person on earth people would expect to get a colon polyp.
He’s physically fit (he left me in the dust the last time we ran together), he eats a healthy diet, he doesn’t smoke, and he has no family history of colorectal cancer or colon polyps.
But several weeks ago, when Mehmet had his first screening colonoscopy at age 50, I removed a small adenomatous polyp that had the potential to turn into cancer over time.
Statistically, most small polyps like his don’t become cancer. But almost all colon cancers begin as benign polyps that gradually become malignant over about 10-15 years.
Since there’s no way of knowing which polyps will turn bad, we take them all out. The good news is there’s plenty of opportunity to prevent cancer by removing these polyps while they are still benign. But only about 63 percent of Americans between ages 50 and 75 get screened for colorectal cancer.
Patients who smoke, eat diets high in red and processed meats, drink too much alcohol, don’t exercise, and are obese are at increased risk of colorectal cancer. So Mehmet’s healthy lifestyle may actually have protected him from having a bigger polyp – or even colorectal cancer by now.
But the bottom line is this: no matter what you do, you can’t totally eliminate your risk of developing this disease, which is expected to strike 143,000 Americans and kill over 51,000 in 2010.
About the same number of women is affected as men. And about seventy
percent of patients have no family history of colorectal cancer.
The take-away message is clear. Everybody should discuss with their doctor getting screened for colon cancer by age 50 – earlier if there’s an increased risk because of factors like a family history of colon cancer, a family history of an adenomatous colon polyp before age 60, or inflammatory bowel disease.
African Americans tend to get colon cancer earlier than Caucasians and have a 50 percent greater death rate from it; so some experts recommend beginning screening at age 45 in this group.
Discuss with your doctor what test makes the most sense for you and when you should get it. Screening tests include colonoscopy, virtual colonoscopy using a CT scan, barium enema, flexible sigmoidoscopy, and various stool tests looking for invisible blood or other markers.
Ten years ago, Katie Couric’s televised colonoscopy led to a 20 percent increase in screening colonoscopies across America – a stunning rise
called “The Katie Couric Effect.”
Here’s hoping for a “Dr. Oz Effect.”
Cancer deaths drop as colonoscopy rates soar
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Colonoscopy appears to slash colon cancer deaths, according to the largest study of the procedure so far.
Although colonoscopy is considered the gold standard for colon cancer screening and is used in millions of people every year, it hasn’t been clear how its widespread use impacts the disease’s overall death toll.
The new report, based on close to 2.5 million Canadians, shows that for every one-percent increase in colonoscopy use, the risk of death from colon cancer dropped three percent.
“These procedures cost a lot, and we’re doing an awful lot of them in the US and in Canada,” Dr. Linda Rabeneck, who led the research, told Reuters Health. “Now we know they work.”
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Doctors recommend universal screening due to prevalence of colorectal cancer
The specialist: Dr. Randolph Steinhagen on colorectal cancer
As chief of Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Steinhagen treats patients who suffer from disorders like colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). He has been at Mount Sinai for more than 30 years.
Who’s at risk
Colorectal cancer is a malignancy that arises at the end of the intestinal tract in the colon or rectum. “By definition, cancer has the ability to break off from the region where it arose and spread to other parts of the body,” says Steinhagen. “Colorectal cancers frequently spread to the liver.”
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Millions missing out on colon cancer screening
WASHINGTON — Nearly half the people who need potentially lifesaving checks for the nation’s No. 2 cancer killer — colorectal cancer — miss them, despite years of public efforts to make colon screening as widespread as tests for breast and prostate cancer.
But what if you opened your mailbox one day to find an at-home test kit, no doctor’s appointment needed?
The dreaded colonoscopy may get the most attention but a cheap, old-fashioned stool test works, too — and when California health care giant Kaiser Permanente started mailing those tests to patients due for a colon check, its screening rates jumped well above the national average.
Now specialists are looking to Kaiser and the Veterans Affairs health system, another program that stresses stool-tests, for clues to what might encourage more people to get screened for a cancer that can be prevented, not just treated, if only early signs of trouble are spotted in time.
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High vitamin D levels, lower colon cancer risk?
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Higher levels of vitamin D in the blood may help protect both men and women from cancers of the colon and rectum, confirm results of the largest study ever conducted on the topic.
Among more than 1200 people who developed colorectal cancer and an equal number who did not, researchers found that those with the highest levels of vitamin D in their blood had a nearly 40 percent reduced risk of developing colorectal cancer compared to those with the lowest levels.
The findings from the EPIC study – short for European Prospective Investigation into
Colon Cancer Deaths Could Make Big Drop
ATLANTA – Colon cancer deaths could drop dramatically in the next decade because of better screening and treatment, according to an optimistic new prediction by top researchers.
The estimate was made in an annual report that shows that, overall, the U.S. cancer death rate is continuing to decline, as it has since the 1990s.
The report released Monday focuses largely on cancers of the colon and rectum, which together are the third leading cancer killer in the United States. An estimated 50,000 people will die from it this year.
The battle against colorectal cancer has been a growing success story: The death rate dropped roughly 20 percent in the last 10 years, according to American Cancer Society figures.
The new report — by researchers at the advocacy group and other organizations — predicts that death rate will drop even more over the next decade. By 2020, the rate could be half what it was in 2000, they said.
Too optimistic?
The prediction assumes colon cancer screening and improved chemotherapy treatment will become more and more common, and colon cancer contributors like smoking and red meat consumption will decline.
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