An estimated 90 million Americans are at risk of developing colorectal cancer, the second-leading cancer killer in the United States. About 145,000 Americans will be diagnosed with the disease this year-and 57,000 will die from it. In many cases, the cancerous tumors are discovered too late, mainly because screening was not taken seriously.
The fact is, screening can prevent many cases of this disease because most colorectal cancers evolve from benign adenomatous polyps that develop during a 10-year silent window. A single colonoscopy exam can remove polyps when they are still harmless and decrease the life-long risk of colon cancer death by 31 percent. And that’s just one exam. Repeating the exam every 10 years does much more.
Relatively few people, however, are properly screened for colon cancer. While roughly 80 percent of U.S. women are screened for breast cancer with mammography, fewer than 20 percent of Americans over age 50 have even had the least invasive colon cancer screening test-a fecal occult blood test-in the past five years.
According to experts, the barriers to proper screening for colon cancer involve misperceptions, money, manpower...