March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month, a time when health officials stress the importance of early detection and prevention.
“It is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States just behind lung cancer.”
That’s Dr. Jeffrey Michalak, a GI specialist with C-N-O-S, who says 50 is no longer the benchmark age for colonoscopy screenings.
“And as we've seen, morbidity mortality of this was going up over the years, up until about 30 years ago, when we started implementing colonoscopy more. And now that number has come down significantly. And by decreasing the age to 45, we're able to catch these polyps earlier before they can turn into cancer.”
The American Cancer Society says the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer is about 1 in 23 for men and 1 in 26 for women. And the number of people in the U.S. diagnosed with colon cancer below the age of 50 has increased every year since the 1990s. Something Dr. Michalak does sees in his many years of practice.
“And I don't know if that people are more aware of changing bowels or rectal bleed or change in symptoms, and or know more about colonoscopy and talking to their doctor about it than we did 30 or 40 years ago. So maybe it's just that the incidence isn't significantly increasing, which I do think it is some, but I think it's that people are more aware and coming to their doctor sooner.”
In addition to colonoscopy starting at age 45, Dr. Michalak says people who do even more to lessen their chance of problems.
“A healthy lifestyle, diet, exercise, and weight loss are always good. And I think patients to be an advocate for themselves, most practitioners should say, ‘Hey, here's the guidelines, you need to do this.’ But if you know for yourself that you're 47 and nothing's been said, you should reach out say ‘I need to talk to my doctor. I need to get this done.’ This has been shown to save lives.”
“Whether you're normally constipated or loose, if you see a change in that maybe some of the abdominal pain at times, and specifically rectal bleeding sometimes is where distal polyps can have some bleeding, people assume it's hemorrhoids. Well, then people come in for a colonoscopy, and yeah, maybe it was hemorrhoids. But then we're finding polyps and younger folk that weren't causing their symptoms. So that's why sometimes hemorrhoids and the symptoms can be a blessing in disguise because we're finding stuff at younger ages.
Dr. Michalak hopes by speaking up, people will hear his message to help prevent a potentially deadly disease.