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Colon Cancer Awareness Month

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by
Brittany Sweeney
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Health

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness month. Colon cancer hit close to home for Dr. Angela Nicholas as her husband John was diagnosed in 2013 at the age of 45.

"When he was diagnosed. He was stage four He survived for five, five and a half years. He went through every treatment. He went through chemotherapy. He had radio-frequency ablation, he had surgeries, he had radiation, he was in six clinical trials and most of the time that he had colon cancer, he really lived with colon cancer. He was an advocate. He was a supporter of those who didn't have access to, you know, good medical care or to places where he felt like they were getting good medical advice," says Dr. Nicholas. John MacLeod died last year.

PBS39 News ReportsCOLON CANCER SCREENINGS
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A Doctor whose husband died in his 40s of colon cancer, gets the word out.

Now, Dr. Nicholas is using her personal heartache to educate others. She says "colorectal cancer is one of our most preventable cancers that we have. We know that only about two thirds of our patients who are in that age category who should be screened do get screened. And when colon cancer is found early 90% of our patients survive many, many years.”

However, when found at a later stage only 1 in 10 patients survive says Einstein Medical Center Montgomery’s Chief Medical Officer. "The other thing that is even more concerning is that over the past five to 10 years, we've noticed that the age of which patients are getting diagnosed is actually becoming, it's actually getting younger and younger," she adds.

Dr. Nicholas wants you to know about changes to screening, "the American Cancer Society about a year ago, recommended and adopted the recommendation that we move the screening from 50 to 45. So now, any patient at average risk for colon cancer should be screened at 45, not at 50 and that word has not really gotten out yet. "

Einstein, as an organization, set a goal to screen 62% of its patients in the appropriate age range, by June. Even with the coronavirus outbreak, they have already met that goal.