Colorectal Cancer News

Gastrointestinal bleeding in patients taking blood thinners for an irregular heartbeat should prompt doctors to check for colon cancer, a new study advises.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force -- which sets federal screening standards -- still recommends a starting age of 50 for people at average risk.

Taking certain antibiotics -- especially multiple times or for long courses -- may put you at risk for colon cancer, a large new study suggests.

Researchers found that for 80% of the advanced cancers studied, the spreading most likely started very early -- before the cancer was even diagnosed.

Heather Blackburn-Beel was 38 years old when she died from colon cancer, an example of a troubling rise of the cancer's incidence in young adults.

American Cancer Society researchers analyzed CDC data and found that in states that were very early adopters of the Medicaid expansion, the rate of low-income adults ages 50-64 who were up to date with colon cancer screening rose from 42.3% in 2012 to 51.1% in 2016.

Among twenty-somethings, colon cancer cases rose by 18% a year in Denmark and 11%  in Norway, according to the study published May 16 in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hematology.

Researchers believe that mailing the screening kits directly to patients, which frames participation as the default, reduced steps in the process, and made it easier for patients to get screened and catch colorectal cancer earlier or even potentially prevent it from occurring.

Low-dose aspirin can lower your risk for colon cancer but fewer than half the people who already have polyps aren’t taking it.

People whose colonoscopies find adenomas – polyps that can become cancer -- are routinely asked to come back for another colonoscopy in three years, but a surprisingly high percentage fail to get the follow-up, a new study reports.

Women aged 20 to 49 who were overweight or obese had up to twice the risk for colon cancer before age 50, compared with normal-weight women, in a new study.

People in a recent study who drank one or more 12-ounce servings of artificially sweetened soft drinks a day had a 46 percent lower risk of cancer recurrence or death over the study period than those who didn't drink such beverages.

The chances of developing colon cancer decline about 19 percent in women and 7 percent in men for every incremental increase in blood vitamin D levels, the researchers found.

Researchers report that the rate of infections following these procedures at outpatient ambulatory surgery centers could be 100 times higher than previously believed, a new study finds.

Just last year, an ACS study found that since the mid-1990s, colon cancer rates among Americans aged 20 to 54 have been steadily inching up -- by between 0.5 percent and 2 percent each year.

Spotting polyps during a colonoscopy can be tricky, particularly when they're flat or small (under 5 millimeters), one expert in the United States said.

Their study of almost 16,000 patients who underwent colonoscopy found that the long-term risk for colon cancer was 2.5 times greater for those with advanced polyps, compared to people without such growths.

Flexible sigmoidoscopy looks at about a third of the colon, as compared to the whole colon as is seen in colonoscopy. But unlike colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy does not typically require sedation.

In the new study, researchers tracked data on more than 32,000 women in the United Kingdom who were followed for an average of 17 years.

The study looked at roughly 25,000 patients in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health system, where colonoscopy is widely used. The VA views it as the main screening test for patients aged 50 and older who have average odds for developing colon or rectal cancer.

Polyps are not cancerous, but some can eventually turn into cancer if they're not removed.

Though the appendicitis risk is small, it's at least four times higher the week after a colonoscopy than in the 51 weeks that follow, the study found. And by some measures, the increase is 12 times higher.

These foods all increase inflammation in your body, and the inflammation they cause is associated with a higher chance of developing colon cancer, according to pooled data from two major health studies.

The test detects so-called "circulating tumor cells" (CTCs). Researchers tested it on 620 people in Taiwan who were scheduled for a routine colonoscopy at a local hospital.

Among people treated for non-metastatic colon cancer, every 5 grams of fiber added to their diet reduced their odds of dying by nearly 25 percent, said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Chan. He is an associate professor in the department of medicine at Harvard Medical School.