Women Who Smoke Less Have Equal Risk for CRC as Heavy Male Smokers

Both women and men who are heavy smokers have twice the risk of colorectal cancer or an advanced colon polyp as people who never smoked.  However, women who smoke less have the same risk as men who are heavier smokers.

In a recent study of more than 2,700 men and women, heavy smokers were divided into two groups:

• Heavy exposure A: People who were still smoking or had quit within the last ten year and had exposure of less then 30 pack years.
• Heavy exposure B: Those still smoking or quitting less than ten years before and with exposure of 30 pack years or more.

Pack years are calculated by the number of packs smoked each day times the number of years an individual has smoked. Thirty pack years are equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for thirty years or two packs a day for fifteen years.

• Men who were heavy smokers but smoked less than 30 pack years had about a 25 percent increased risk of serious precancerous polyps or cancer compared to never smokers, but women who smoked the same amount had twice the risk.
• Men who smoked thirty or more pack years had almost three and a half times the risk, while women continued to have a double risk.
• Overall, both male and female heavy smokers — those who were still smoking or had quit less than ten years ago — had twice the risk of serious colon neoplasia as those who never smoked.

Joseph C. Anderson, M.D. from the University of Connecticut Cancer Center and Colon Cancer Prevention Program, reporting at the American College of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando concluded,

Although males and females have a similar 2 fold risk for significant colorectal neoplasia from smoking, women require less exposure in pack years to have an increase in risk.

SOURCE: Anderson J.C. et al., Smoking and Colorectal Neoplasia: Women Require Less Tobacco Exposure For Similar Increased Risk As Compared To Men, American College of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting, October 6, 2008.

Posted by Kate Murphy on October 11th, 2008
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Tags: colorectal cancer prevention, smoking

End of Life Discussions with Doctors Help Patients and Caregivers

When advanced cancer patients talk with their doctors about preparing for the end of their lives, they have a better quality of life as death approaches.  They aren’t more likely to be depressed, and they receive less aggressive care in the last week of life.

Because it is frightening and uncomfortable, many patients don’t bring up the subject with their doctors.  Doctors avoid end-of-life discussions because they, too, find them uncomfortable and because they fear depressing patients or causing emotional problems. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on October 10th, 2008
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Tags: end-of-life, palliative care

USPSTF Updates Screening Guidelines

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has updated their colorectal cancer screening recommendations.

Changes from the 2002 guidelines include recommendations not to routinely screen people over 75 and not to screen people over 85 at all. Decisions about screening between 76 and 85 need to be made in light of individual health, prior screening, and life expectancy.

The recommendations have dropped barium enema as a screening option. They do not include either CT colonography (CTC or so-called virtual colonoscopy), saying that there was not enough current evidence to judge the harms and benefits of the new technology. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on October 9th, 2008
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Tags: colorectal cancer prevention, screening

Improved Colonoscope Finds More Polyps

Polyps on right found with retroscope

Doctors using a new optical device mounted on the end of their scopes, found significantly more polyps in the colon during routine colonoscopies.  Called the Third Eye Retroscope™, it lets gastroenterologists see both forward and backward as the scope moves through the colon.

Although colonoscopy is extremely sensitive and will discover most colon polyps during an exam, some are missed.  They may be hidden in the back side of folds in the colon wall or not seen because they are outside of the half circle view of the standard colonoscope.   The wider view allowed doctors to find 13 percent more polyps and 10 percent more adenomatous polyps, the ones more likely to become cancer. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on October 9th, 2008
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Tags: colonoscopy

Keeping Cancer Patients from Being Lost in Transition

At the end of treatment, cancer patients can feel relieved that the stresses and side effects are over.  But very often they feel lost, uncertain, afraid that regular scrutiny from their oncologists has ended and that something important may be missed.

The Cancer Survivorship Program at the Loyola University Medical Center is among programs designed to ease those fears and protect the overall health of cancer survivors as they move into the future. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on October 7th, 2008
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Tags: survivorship