Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

One of the deadliest forms of cancer is often overlooked, at least partly because it often shows no warning signs.

Colorectal cancer is the fourth-most-common cancer in the U.S., and it’s the second-deadliest type of cancer.

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

Marquette General Hospital and other medical centers around the country are educating people about the importance of being checked.

They’re doing it because by the time any symptoms show, it may already be too late.

But Dr. Jim Surrell of MGH Digestive and Liver Specialists says it doesn’t have to be that way.

He says at least 95% of all cases of colorectal cancer can be prevented if a colonoscopy detects polyps and the polyps are removed.

A colonoscopy certainly isn’t a pleasant topic of conversation, but he says the screening procedure itself is not as unpleasant to experience as many people believe.

Dr. Surrell says many people who are skeptical about the screening process find they can sleep while it’s going on.

Adults age 50 and older have the highest colorectal cancer risk.

Anyone 50 and older is more than ten times as likely to develop colorectal cancer as anyone younger than 50.

We’ll have more about the disease and screening efforts later this week.