Fight Colorectal Cancer

Although nearly four out of ten stage III colon cancer patients had serious financial problems during treatment, treatment related expenses were particularly hard on patients under fifty.  After taking all factors into account, young patients were more than fifty times times more likely to experience financial hardship than patients over 75.  Treatment costs drove them to:

• be in debt
• have to borrow money from family or friends
• sell or refinance their homes
• experience a more than 20 percent drop in income

Financial difficulties sometimes led to stopping treatment early despite the fact that nearly all patients had insurance. 5.4 percent skipped treatments and 7.2 percent refused treatment altogether because of financial problems. Young patients were nearly nine times more likely to skip or refuse treatments.

Patients with incomes under $30,000 were six times more likely not to get recommended treatment. Not being able to work because of disability, leave of absence or employment also raised risk of not getting treatment. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been two weeks since the launch of the Colorectal Cancer Awareness Twibbon and we’re delighted to report that we have surpassed the 250-Twibbon mark!

Add this "twibute" to your Twitter background!

We would love to continue spreading awareness, so for those of you interested in showing your virtual support, you can still add the Twibbon to your Twitter avatar and/or add the Twibbon to your Facebook profile picture.

You can even go a step beyond and change your background to the 250-Person Twibute during Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month – a collage of all of you who have joined in this important cause. This is a great, easy way to get your friends and followers talking more about colorectal cancer and why there is such a need for funding for prevention and treatment research.

A big thank you to all those who have added a Twibbon so far – we appreciate all of your support in getting the word out!

Older men with several kinds of cancer–including colon cancer–do as well or better in the Veterans’ Health Administration as men covered by Medicare, according to a new study published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology in an advanced online release.

The Veterans’ Administration is the nation’s largest integrated health system, providing care for 6 million veterans a year who are eligible because of either service-related disabilities or economic disadvantage. The VHA launched a major reorganization in the mid-1990s to improve its quality of care through electronic records, better care coordination and mistake detection, and improved screening. Read the rest of this entry »

Nearly 5 million people got tweets during yesterday’s “Tweet-Chat” on colon cancer prevention.

Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News Medical Editor, led a Twitter chat on colorectal cancer. The one hour session easily spilled over and has generated an overwhelming number of conversations and a ton of informative feedback. There was a lot of good information shared from a number of organizations and individuals and we urge you to jump on board.

Fight Colorectal Cancer was a strong participant during the #abcDrBchat and at one point ranked in the top ten of contributors. To follow the action and see what you missed CLICK HERE for all the action. If you are new to Twitter, there is quite a conversation happening in the Tweet Universe.

You can follow Dr Besser at Twitter.com/DrRichardBesser and Fight CRC at twitter.com/FightCRC

A Colon Polyp Snared and Gone

We thought it was true . . . and now research comes along with evidence.

Colonoscopy reduces death from colorectal cancer.

In a follow-up analysis from the National Polyp Study, people who had adenomas — the risky kind of polyps — removed during the study were much less likely to die from colon or rectal cancer than  the general US population.  In fact, removing adenomas cut the death rate from colorectal cancer in half.

We knew that colonoscopies find and remove precancerous polyps and reduce the number of new colorectal cancers, but this is the first study to actually link colonoscopy to cutting back death from colorectal cancer.

There was good news in the study for people who didn’t have adenomas too. They had a very low risk of colorectal cancer death. Only one person out of nearly 800 with no adenomas found at the initial exam  died of colorectal cancer. Read the rest of this entry »