The key to fighting colorectal cancer is catching it early.
Screening is the best way to find signs of cancer in your body.
Scheduling and preparing for a colonoscopy can seem intimidating or maybe even scary, but it’s nothing to be afraid of! Putting off a colon screening can do you more harm than good.
In this video, Dr. O’Connor discusses the importance of colon cancer screening from her conversation on BlackDoctor.org with Nurse Alice Benjamin and Dr. Scott Metcalfe from Bravo’s Married to Medicine.
Transcription
Dr. Lynn O’Connor: You want to get it early on, and that’s why the American Cancer Society has dropped the age from 50 to 45 because we’re understanding that younger and younger patients are having problems – so you want to get them before that.
That’s the whole purpose. If you can catch a cancer in its early stages, you’ve got a 95% 5-year survival for early stage cancer. When you get to those advanced stages, now your survival is going to decrease significantly. Sometimes 30-40% survival.
That’s the whole point of screening. If there’s a polyp, you remove it before it becomes a cancer. And when you find a cancer you get it early before it actually spreads.
Chadwick Boseman was presented with an advanced disease – stage III – which means its already spread. It’s in lymph nodes, he’s getting chemotherapy. His survival rate from the gate is decreased. So that’s why you want to have screening.
