Early detection and removal of colon polyps is one of the keys to staving off colorectal cancer, Formosa Cancer Foundation chief executive officer Lai Gi-ming (賴基銘) said yesterday, adding that people in their 30s are not exempt from developing pre-cancerous polyps.
Colorectal cancer is the malignancy with the highest incidence in the country, with 14,040 people found to have the cancer in 2010, said the foundation, which has been running a colorectal cancer screening promotion for the Health Promotion Administration for four years.
“Previously, people have usually not become aware that they have the disease until it was into its third stage,” said Lai, who is also the director of the hematology and oncology division at Wan Fang Hospital. “Now, with screening tests [such as fecal occult blood test and colonoscopy], we detect mostly pre-cancerous cells or early-stage colorectal cancers.”
The foundation’s event last year had 701 participants undergoing a colonoscopy, 57 percent of which, or 403 people, were found to have polyps and 13 of those with polyps had early stage colon cancer.
“Males, according to the data, were 1.3 times more likely to have developed colon polyps,” Lai said.
The risk of developing polyps between the groups of those in their 40s, 50s and 60s was not as apparent, with all of them having equally high rates (64 percent, 58 percent and 60 percent respectively), the foundation said.
“It should be noted that of the 68 people aged from 30 to 39 who underwent a colonoscopy, 35, more than 50 percent, were also detected with polyps to be removed,” the foundation chief said. “However, only 9 percent of them have a family history of the disease, indicating that diet and lifestyle might be the determining factors.”
“As it takes 10 to 15 years for a precancerous polyp to develop into colorectal cancer, early detection and treatment can greatly lower the risk. Studies have shown that having a fecal occult blood test every 1 or 2 years allows for a reduction by 18 percent to 33 percent in mortality from colorectal cancer,” Lai added.
The doctor said that as more people, including young people, are found with polyps or lesions without a family history of colorectal cancer, the risk factors in need of attention are lifestyle-related ones.
“High-fat, high-calorie and low-fiber diets, smoking, alcohol and physical inactivity are all factors that increase one’s risk of colorectal cancer,” Lai said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,