TUESDAY, May 18, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- Many women who are smart enough to get regular checks for breast and cervical cancer tend to overlook testing that could save them from another potential killer -- colon cancer.
Colon cancer is the third-highest cause of cancer death among women, after lung and breast cancer.
But University of Michigan researchers found fewer than half of 52,478 women older than 50 had been checked for the disease, as recommended by the American Cancer Society. Their findings were presented May 15 at the annual meeting of the Society for General Internal Medicine in Chicago.
"Women have internalized the public health message that they should go for regular mammograms and that they should have Pap smears," lead researcher Dr. Ruth C. Carlos said in a prepared statement. "Now they need to add colorectal screenings to the list, and we think that there's tremendous opportunity for physicians and health systems to use women's other screening appointments to increase their awareness."
Only 46 percent of women over 50 were checked for colon cancer in 2001, according to the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance Survey, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By comparison, nearly 70 percent had gotten cervical cancer screenings and more than 82 percent had been regularly checked for breast cancer.
Current American Cancer Society guidelines recommend that men and women aged 50 and over get stool-based screening annually and undergo full colonoscopy once every 10 years, to check for pre-cancerous polyps in the colon.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about colon cancer.
