Colorectal cancer risks based on your medical and hereditary history cannot be avoided. In our previous blog we told you about colorectal cancer risks you could overcome with your behavioral and lifestyle changes. If you are a new reader of the DDC blog, please read about those risks, the ones you can change, before reading this blog. This article discusses risks for colorectal cancer that you cannot change.
Risks of Colorectal Cancer Based On Your Medical Condition and Hereditary Legacy
Your DNA Can Hold the Risk of Colorectal Cancer.
Perhaps someday, as medicine continues to evolve, this article will change drastically. Scientists are making discoveries in DNA, genetics research, and regenerative science every day. Science may eventually catch up to science fiction. Until then, we must simply be vigilant about our medical history and heredity. We can not change certain things ingrained our DNA–at least not yet.
The Digestive Disease Consultants do not want to make you anxious about your future. But, our consultants want to make you aware of your risks. You should also be reassured by the fact that, in spite of genetics, colorectal cancer has a very high rate of cure in its early stages.
Our screening methods for colorectal cancer are very accurate. We reiterate the Doctors and staff of the Digestive Disease Consultants in Orlando have joined an intense national campaign to bring you colorectal cancer awareness this month. Welcome to part three of our coverage of this timely topic.
The Medical History of Your Family Matters!
You may be in an increased risk category due to your medical history or your family’s genetic history. This doesn’t mean you absolutely must endure colorectal cancer. You simply might want to begin screening at a younger age. Likewise, we often recommend you take the tests more often than average.
1. You Can’t Fight Your Birthdays!
Age remains a big risk factor. Until the recent data was discovered involving the rise in colorectal cancer among millennials, it was popularly thought to be an older person’s disease. Real concern for it did not begin until after 50.
However, rreview the new facts behind people in their 40’s and colorectal cancer. You will be as surprised as the research scientists who discovered the rise in statistics and deaths of younger people. We commented on this in our previous blog.
2. Got Polyps?
If you or a member of your immediate family have already had colorectal polyps, or colorectal cancer, you are in a high risk group because of this medical or familial factor.
In the words of the Mayo Clinic, “We know that certain people are at higher risk because of what’s happening in their family. If you have a first degree relative (such as your parents, brothers or sisters, or child), you’re at an increased risk.”
Investigate your family medical history, as well as your own. If you find evidence of colorectal cancer, make careful note of the ages of relatives who had colon or rectal cancer. Especially note if they had it before their sixtieth birthday.
3. Bowel Disease Blues:
If your medical history reveals you have inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, you are also at high risk for colorectal cancer.
4. Caution: Genetic Syndromes in Your Medical History
Today’s genetic tests can detect cancer causing syndromes.
If you have certain genetic syndromes, you are in a risk group for contracting colorectal cancer. More important than the color of your eyes, a gene factor might give you the legacy of genetic mutation that results in colorectal cancer. Sometimes you inherit the defective gene from only one parent and other times, you inherit it from both of them.
Mayo Clinic experts caution, “Patients who have inherited one of the following syndromes have an extremely high risk for developing colon cancer, approaching 90%-100%.” Then they add, “Fortunately, blood tests are now available to test for these hereditary colon cancer syndromes, once a syndrome has been suspected within a family.”
Heredity and FAP
Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, or FAP, or Gardner’s Disease are names for hereditary colon cancer syndrome that often appears in the teen years. member is thus afflicted, hundreds or thousands of polyps develop in the colon. The disease will very probably develop into colon cancer. So, often the treatment is the removal of the colon. For more information, see this basic online resource.
Other areas of the body, such as thyroid, stomach, and ampulla can develop cancer in these patients in their 40’s or younger.
AFAP: A Kinder, Milder FAP
Attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis, or AFAP is a gentler version of FAP. Although such patients develop only 100 or less polyps, they are also in danger of developing colon cancer very young. Likewise, polyps might grow in their stomachs and duodenum.
Hereditary Nonpolyposis colon cancer, or HNPCC
If you or a family member have HNPCC, your tendency will be to contract colon cancers that originate in the right colon. Many such patients develop their cancers in their young adulthood, age 30-40. A risk exists for other types of cancer. These tumors in uterus, stomach, ovaries, ureters, bile ducts, liver, skin, and brain can all result from HNPCC.
MYH Polyposis Syndrome
Recently, doctors discovered the hereditary syndrome named MYH. This syndrome almost always causes 10-100 polyps a year to begin popping up within the colon. Onset often begins when a person matures to 40 years of age.
You might inherit this syndrome because of recessive mutant genes from each parent. Patients who have it generally do not have family history with polyps or colon cancer.
To detect your colorectal cancer risks, study your medical history.
But they often have siblings who are afflicted with colorectal cancer. This is often referred to as “Lynch syndrome.” It “is an inherited disorder that increases the risk of many types of cancer, particularly cancers of the colon (large intestine) and rectum, which are collectively referred to as colorectal cancer.”
Stop Guessing about Your Medical History and Hereditary Risks—Get Screened!
We know you can find many excuses for not investigating your risks for colorectal cancer. We know you don’t like to think about colorectal screening with “stool tests like fecal occult blood tests, or the fecal immunochemical test (FIT), stool DNA tests…”
And we are aware you really don’t want to discuss “flexible sigmoidoscopy, CT scan colonography or colonoscopy…” in polite conversation. However, we implore you not to risk your life on discomfort or repulsion.
Is it time to find out if you are in a risk group because of your medical history, age or heredity? If you are over 50, or if you are experiencing symptoms, we highly encourage you to live your longest life by getting screened.