Again in 2007 C3 Colorectal Cancer Coalition joins a collaboration of 58 organizations to focus on colorectal cancer awareness during the month of March. March has been National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month since 1999.
When I first began working with colorectal cancer advocacy ten years ago, colon and rectal cancers were rarely discussed publicly. Even though colorectal cancer was the second most common cancer killer of men and women, no one talked about it.
There was no national colorectal cancer advocacy organization and little support for colorectal cancer patients and their families.
Meeting with a reporter at that time who had rectal cancer, I shared my own experience surviving two colon cancers. With tears in her eyes, she said, “You are the first person with colon cancer I’ve spoken to in the nine months since I was diagnosed with this disease.”
Since that time, Katie Couric had a colonoscopy on national TV. Several national colorectal cancer advocacy organizations exist. Screening colonoscopy is reimbursed by Medicare. The fifty-year standby chemo drug 5FU has been joined by two new drugs and three biologic agents approved by the FDA to treat colorectal cancer.
In 2004, 2,200 fewer people died of colorectal cancer than in the year before despite increasing numbers at risk for the disease. A small — but significant step — toward ending death and suffering from colorectal cancer.
We’ve come a long way since those days of silent embarrassment, but we’ve got a long, long way to go.
- In 2007, 153,750 men and women in the United States will be diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer and 52,180 will die from it.
- In 2003. only 42% of people over 50 had been screened for colorectal cancer, either by fecal occult blood test, sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy according to the American Cancer Society.
- Again in 2003, only 17% of uninsured people over 50 had been screened.
Colorectal cancer is preventable, treatable, and beatable. Get Screened!
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