Making those New Year’s Resolutions?

You can do a lot to prevent colon and rectal cancer this year . . . and in the future.

Number One Resolution — Be screened for colorectal cancer if you are 50 or over, earlier if you are at higher risk. Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, full of hope and promises.

Won’t you help make our dream of a world free from colorectal cancer come true in 2012.

• Raise awareness that screening prevents colorectal cancer. Make sure you, your family, and your friends are screened for colorectal cancer as soon you reach 50 — earlier if you are at higher risk.
• Tell your friends living with colon or rectal cancer that they can call the Answer Line with their questions and concerns.
• Join us for supportive discussions in the Fight Colorectal Support Community and let others know they’ll find help there.
• Come to Call on Congress and make sure that programs and funding for colorectal cancer prevention and research are strong and growing.
• Finally, do one last, very important thing in 2011 – Make a gift to Fight Colorectal Cancer and ensure that our programs and research grants continue in 2012 and until we end suffering and death from colon and rectal cancer.

Have a great New Year — and get behind the cure.

Before 1980, colorectal cancer death rates were actually higher for whites than African Americans.

But, as rates began falling in the 1980′s for both blacks and white patients, decreases for whites were substantially greater than those for blacks.  Between 1985 and 2008, mortality rates for whites with colorectal cancer fell 40 percent, while black rates declined by less than 20 percent.

The decrease in black death rates was higher than those for whites at every stage at diagnosis, but strikingly different when cancer had spread to distant sites.   For whites whose colon or rectal cancer was first found at stage IV, death rates fell by more than 30 percent, while black rates declined by less than 5 percent.

Over time, five year survival after regional and distant diagnoses grew for white patients but remained essentially unchanged for blacks. Read the rest of this entry »

On December 23, 1971 President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 – sometimes called the War on Cancer.  Earlier that year in his State of the Union Address, the President had said,

The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease. Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal.

Among other things, the legislation

• Strengthened the National Cancer Institute.
• Made the NCI Director a Presidential appointee.
• Provided $400 million to the NCI for 1972.
• Put funding for NCI into a direct bypass budget.
• Gave NCI the power to establish cancer centers and fund research grants.

In 1975 half adults and children with cancer died. Today nearly 7 out of 10 adults and 8 out of 10 children will be alive five years after they are diagnosed. Read the rest of this entry »

Contrary to what is happening for people over fifty, rates of colon and rectal cancer are rising in younger adults.

While new colorectal cancers in older people have fallen consistently since 1985, rates for people under 50 have risen, particularly for rectal cancer.

Even more concerning, young people with colon cancer were diagnosed at later, less curable stages than those 50 or older. Almost two-thirds had a stage III or IV cancer compared to half of people diagnosed at a later age.

In the Archives of Internal Medicine, Nancy You, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and her colleagues ask, “Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer: Is It Time to Pay Attention?”

Read the rest of this entry »