Men
Choose Prostate Over Colon for Cancer Screening
Many
avoid colon screenings, although they save more lives
Men, would you rather have
a screening for colorectal cancer or prostate cancer?
Your answer appears to
clearly focus on the prostate, or maybe the ease of the test. A
new study shows men are far more likely to get screened for prostate
cancer than for cancer of the colon or rectum.
This trend is troubling
to cancer prevention experts, because colorectal cancer screening
has been proven to reduce deaths, while the benefits of prostate
cancer screening are far less sure.
Prostate cancer is slow-growing
and tends to develop late in life. That means many men are likely
to die of another cause before the prostate cancer would pose any
risk to their health, says Dr. Brenda Sirovich, lead author of the
study and a staff physician at the Veteran's Administration Medical
Center in White River Junction, Vt.
"We expected to find more
men would be tested with the proven technique than the unproven
test," Sirovich says. "What we found was the reverse."
For the study, which appeared
in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA), Sirovich and her colleagues used data
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) on 49,000 men from 50 states.
The researchers found
that 75 percent of men aged 50 and older reported having had a prostate
cancer screening test at least once, while only 63 percent had colorectal
cancer screening.
In only four states—Hawaii,
Maine, Minnesota, and Vermont —were men equally likely
to have had both.
"We don't know why that
is," Sirovich notes. "It is an area for future research.
Prostate cancer screening
is a simple blood test. Colorectal cancer screening may include
the following:
-
digital
rectal examination (DRE) - a physician or healthcare
provider inserts a gloved finger into the rectum to feel for
anything unusual or abnormal.
-
fecal occult
blood test - checks for hidden (occult) blood in
the stool. It involves placing a very small amount of stool
on a special card, which is then tested in the physician's
office or sent to a laboratory.
-
-
sigmoidoscopy
- a diagnostic procedure that allows the physician to examine
the inside of a portion of the large intestine, and is helpful
in identifying the causes of diarrhea, abdominal pain, constipation,
abnormal growths, and bleeding. A short, flexible, lighted
tube, called a sigmoidoscope, is inserted into the intestine
through the rectum. The scope blows air into the intestine
to inflate it and make viewing the inside easier.
-
colonoscopy
- a procedure that allows the physician to view the entire
length of the large intestine, and can often help identify
abnormal growths, inflamed tissue, ulcers, and bleeding.
It involves inserting a colonoscope, a long, flexible, lighted
tube, in through the rectum up into the colon. The colonoscope
allows the physician to see the lining of the colon, remove
tissue for further examination, and possibly treat some
problems that are discovered.
Among men aged 50 to 79,
54 percent were up-to-date on prostate cancer screening, while only
45 percent were up-to-date on colorectal cancer screening, the study
found.
Colorectal cancer is the
second leading cause of cancer deaths among men and women in the
United States. This year, an estimated 150,000 people will be diagnosed
with the disease and 57,000 will die from it, according to the National
Cancer Institute.
When caught early, colorectal
cancer is highly treatable, says Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology
at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in Baton Rouge, La. About 95 percent
of colon cancer cases begin with polyps, he says, which are highly
curable.
But many people are uncomfortable
with having that part of their bodies examined. And a colonoscopy
is inconvenient. You cannot consume anything other than clear liquids
the day before the test. You have to drink another liquid that makes
you have repeated bowel movements. Then there is the probe, which
physicians say does not cause pain.
"I'm not surprised by
this," Brooks says. "Colon cancer is the number one cancer
that is not screened for adequately. It's a silent killer and patients
do not avail themselves of the excellent cancer screening tests
we have."
The American Cancer
Society and other major medical organizations recommend
men and women over the age of 50 get screened for colon cancer with
a fecal occult blood test yearly and a flexible sigmoidoscopy or
colonoscopy every five to 10 years.
People with a family history
of colon cancer, or history of polyps, should get tested more often.
If you have undergone a colonoscopy, most physicians say you can
forgo the fecal occult blood test for several years.
Always consult your physician
for more information.
Online
Resources
(Our Organization is not
responsible for the content of Internet sites.)
American
Cancer Society
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
Men's
Health Network
National
Cancer Institute
National
Institutes of Health (NIH)
Pediatrics
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April 2003
Many
Avoid Colon Screenings, Although They Save More Lives
A
Touchy Subject
Online
Resources
In Other Men's Health
News:
A
Touchy Subject
Too few men do
testicular self-examination
Most men are not taught
how to do testicular self-examinations and they also do not bother
performing them.
So says an American study
in a recent issue of Pediatrics.
The electronic survey
of 129 pediatric or pediatric/internal medicine residents at two
teaching programs found that only 29 percent of the male residents
performed monthly testicular self-examinations, which take only
about a minute to complete.
The survey also found
that only 40 percent of the residents taught the testicular self-examination
to their 12- to 21-year-old patients.
The most common reason
offered by male residents for not doing testicular self-examinations
on themselves was that they simply forgot. Lack of time and not
thinking about it were the reasons they cited for not teaching the
self-examination to their patients.
While 41 percent of the
residents said they had been instructed on how to teach testicular
self-examination, 88 percent said they had received instruction
on how to teach breast self-examination to patients.
Testicular cancer cases
have increased 42 percent in the past 25 years. They accounts for
20 percent of the cancers diagnosed in males aged 15 to 35. That
makes it the most common cancer in that age group.
Along with the target
age group, risk factors for testicular cancer include being Caucasian,
family history, and an undescended testes. Monthly self-examinations
are recommended for men with one or more of the risk factors.
Testicular cancer has
a five-year survival rate of 96 percent. As with all cancers, late
detection significantly lowers the chances of survival.
Always consult your physician
for more information.
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