Colon Cancer Awareness Month: risks, symptoms and when to get screened

Rachel Ramsey
·2 min read

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – March is colorectal cancer awareness month, and doctors are urging patients to stay vigilant when it comes to screenings and paying attention to their health.

Colon cancer is a cancer that occurs in the gastrointestinal tract. Dr. William E. Wise Jr., who’s a colorectal surgeon at OhioHealth, said it can happen anywhere from the appendix, down to the rectum. Wise said though your risk of getting colon cancer increases with age, people can still get it at any age.

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“Symptoms are predominantly bleeding, a change in bowel habits, the sensation that one has had a bowel movement that there’s “still more to have,” Wise said. “Those are the most common symptoms that people need to pay attention to and not ignore in conversations with their families and physicians.”

Wise said that over the last 25 years, colon cancer has been decreasing in those over the age of 50, but noted the risk of colon cancer in younger patients has increased significantly over the last 10-15 years.

“It’s hard to know exactly why,” Wise said. “Part of it is lifestyle, smoking, bad diet, obesity. So those kinds of things play a role.”

Though there are risks people can avoid, there are still healthy, young people who are being diagnosed with colon cancer and have died.

“Think Chadwick Boseman,” Wise said. “Not exactly the picture of poor health … who died at 43 of colon cancer.”

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The recommendation for colon cancer screenings should begin at 45 years old, Wise said. The recommendation is for anyone, regardless if you are at high risk of colon cancer or not, but Wise said some should get their screening earlier than 45.

“If one has risk factors like family history of colorectal cancer, a prior history of a polyp, inflammatory bowel disease, some of those things would indicate that a screening should take place before age 45,” Wise said.

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