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Health boss advises over-50s to screen for colon cancer

The Bureau of Health Promotion urged people more than 50 years of age yesterday to receive yearly screening for colon cancer, which is the third-most common kind of cancer in the nation.

Kung Hsien-lan (孔憲蘭), head of the bureau's Cancer Control and Prevention Division, said that colon cancer results from colorectal polyps turning malignant and that there is a 46 percent chance of malignant cells existing in polyps larger than 2cm in diameter.

20 percent

While 90 percent of colon cancer patients survive if the cancer is discovered at an early stage, the survival rate is less than 20 percent if it is discovered only at a late stage, Kung said.

According to Kung, colon cancer is most prevalent in people more than 50 years of age, and statistics from Europe and the US show that receiving fecal occult blood tests every one to two years can help early discovery of colon cancer and reduce the death rate by 18 percent to 33 percent.

Every year

Advising people more than 50 to receive screening every year, Kung said the government now subsidizes fecal occult blood tests every two years for citizens between 50 years and 69 years of age.

Tallies from the Department of Health indicate that colon cancer has the third-highest cancer-related death rate in Taiwan.

Statistics show that 3,898 of 7,366 people that were diagnosed with colon cancer in 2002 died within two years of being diagnosed, while 4,111 of 8,238 people diagnosed in 2003 died within two years, showing a slight decline in the percentage.
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