Early Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer Needs a Family History Check

The risk of colorectal cancer in people is higher with a strong family history of colorectal cancer. Cancer in brothers, sisters, or parents is more concerning as compared to cancer in relatives.

A new study published in a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS), Cancer finds that all the patients with colorectal cancer somewhere in the range 40 and 49 years old could have been analyzed earlier if they had been screened according to current family history-based screening guidelines.

Study in detail here.

In numerous nations, the risk of colorectal cancer is increasing in grown-up under fifty years of age. The researchers recommend early screening to diagnose colorectal cancer among people with a family history of the disease. Similarly, a few medical societies suggest starting screening at forty years of age or ten years of age for people with a first-degree relative with colorectal cancer.

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A family history of colorectal cancer means the chances to develop colorectal cancer are several times higher than those without a family history.

Center for disease control and prevention finds that if abnormal growths, Precancerous colorectal polyps are not removed from the colon or rectum then these growths can turn into cancer but all the polyps do not turn into cancer. And it’s important to inform family members first if a person diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The history of both mothers’ side family and father’s side family should be included while collecting family health history.

The MD, of the VA San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California San Diego, Samir Gupta and his associates collected data on people of forty to forty-nine years old to estimate the potential impact of family history-based guidelines for screening.

More than two thousand of them were with colorectal malignancy and more than seven hundred were without colorectal malignancy in the Colon Cancer Family Registry from 1998 to 2007. The Colon Cancer Family Registry contains information and specimens contributed by more than 15,000 families around the world and across the spectrum of risk for colorectal cancer.

The examiners found that 25 percent of people with colorectal malignant growth and 10 percent of those without disease met the measures for family ancestry based early screening. Practically all patients with colorectal malignant growth who met these standards ought to have been screened at a younger age than the time when their disease was diagnosed. Therefore, early screening based on family history-based guidelines could help to diagnose the disease earlier in them or perhaps even prevented.

A study finds that most of the screening guidelines suggest biennial fecal occult blood test (FOBT) or 10-yearly colonoscopy for the lowest risk category while 5-yearly colonoscopy for the middle-risk category and annual or biennial (every two years) colonoscopy for the highest risk category which includes those with high-risk familial syndromes.

Most of the screening guidelines suggest screening to start at age 50 for all categories of risk or 10 years before the youngest age of colorectal malignancy analysis in a family member.

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Dr. Gupta tells that the present study suggests that using family ancestry based measures to recognize people for earlier screening is advocated and has a guarantee for helping to identify people in danger for young-onset colorectal malignant growth.

Researchers have a chance to improve early detection and anticipation of colorectal cancer under age 50 if patients collect and offer their family ancestry of colorectal disease consistently, and healthcare providers more reliably elicit and follow up on family ancestry.