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Bringing colorectal cancer into the spotlight
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Still in the shadow of public and medical attention, yet quite infamous, colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates 50,830 people died from colorectal cancer in the United States in 2013, comparable to the annual loss of a city with a population the size of St. Cloud, Minnesota.
In order to decrease those numbers, it is important to identify risk factors, to make early diagnosis, and to improve treatment by finding targets that are still hidden from our detection.
The average risk of colorectal cancer is one in 20. Our understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of colorectal cancer has been evolving rapidly. Genetic causes can be divided into three groups:
- Sporadic, in which there is no family history of colorectal cancer (70% of patients, particularly men over the age of 50); environmental and dietary factors have been implicated;
- Familial colorectal cancer that is not part of known inherited syndromes (20% of patients), and
- Inherited predisposition to colorectal cancer where patients can present with polyps as a major manifestation of the disease like familial adenomatous polyposis.
— Andrzej Petryk, MD, is a hematologist and medical oncologist specializing in Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as chronic lymphocytic leukemia-associated colorectal carcinoma, at Minnesota Oncology’s Maplewood Cancer Center.