The paradox of colorectal cancer, or colon cancer, holds in two figures: it is the 2nd most deadly cancer but it is also a cancer that is cured in 90% of cases … if it is detected early. And this is the whole point of this blue March, the month of colorectal cancer. Like Pink October, which enabled women to understand the issue of breast cancer screening, the health authorities would like that every year, in March, people over 50 who have not yet done so screen, discuss the subject of colon cancer with their doctor.
With 42,000 new cases in 2012 and more than 17,500 deaths, colorectal cancer remains the 3rd most frequent cancer in France and the 2nd deadliest. The fight against this cancer is therefore a major public health issue. For screening, doctors classify their patients into three categories: medium-risk patients (about 80% of cancer cases), high-risk patients (15-20% of cancer cases), and very high-risk patients. (between 1 and 3% of cases).
Colon cancer: medium or high risk?A patient at medium risk is a person between the ages of 50 and 74 years old, with no family history or personal history of colorectal cancer or adenoma (a benign tumor) and who has no suggestive symptoms. In this case, as part of a screening program, the doctor will suggest performing a test for occult blood in the stool (guaiac test), possibly followed by a colonoscopy in the event of a positive reaction to this test.
A high risk patient is someone :
– who has had colorectal cancer or adenoma,
– whose first-degree relative (father, mother, brother, sister, child) has had colorectal cancer before the age of 65 or whose two parents have had colon cancer, regardless of their age,
– suffering from chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), extended at the time of diagnosis and evolving for more than 20 years. High risk patients are 4 to 10 times more likely to develop colorectal cancer. The recommended screening method in their case is colonoscopy, the repetition rate of which will be determined by the gastroenterologist.
A very high risk patient is someone :
– which belongs to a family suffering from familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), a disease characterized by the presence of numerous adenomas in the digestive tract,
– a member of a family with cases of hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer, also called Lynch syndrome. In this case, the doctor will direct you to a specialized onco-genetics consultation and the exploration of the colon will be done by a colonoscopy using a dye (chromo-colonoscopy) to improve the visibility of the adenomas.
