CRC AWARENESS MONTH

March is national colorectal cancer (CRC) awareness month, a disease that kills over 50,000 individuals in America each year. CRC is a preventable disease when regular colonoscopy screening is performed. Depending on the individual’s risk factors, the American Cancer Society recommends the age at which screening for CRC should start. Individuals with average risk of colon cancer should start screening at age 45.  Average risk is identified as individuals who do not have personal history of colon cancer or high-risk polyps, do not have family history of colon cancer, history of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), do not have genetic risk for colon cancer, or do not have a history of radiation treatment to the abdomen.

During the colonoscopy procedure, the gastroenterologist identifies and removes polyps, which are sent to the laboratory to be examined under the microscope by a pathologist. Experienced pathologists with subspecialty fellowship training in gastrointestinal pathology can be of great value in identifying challenging precancerous lesions in these polyps and may alert the gastroenterologist to completely remove suspicious lesions or refer the patients to surgery. This high level of expertise between the gastroenterologists and the pathologist plays an important role in improving patient outcome.