National poll shows many who should be getting screened for colorectal cancer are not

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - A national poll shows that some people who should be getting screened for colorectal cancer are not.

UVA doctors are bringing awareness to the issue in the hopes that more people will be screened to catch signs early.

“I think the big message here is that colon cancer is preventable,” UVA Colorectal Cancer Screening Team Lead Cindy Yoshida said.

Dr. Yoshida says many people are unaware that the screening age for colorectal cancer has been lowered to 45.

“We see that about 19,000, over almost 20,000 young people are going to die from colon cancer this year, under the age of 50. So that’s a huge number and we need to get people aware of the fact that it’s an epidemic and it’s a problem,” Dr. Yoshida said.

Dr. Yoshida says people that were born later than 1990 have four times the risk of rectal cancer and twice the risk of colon cancer to somebody who was born in 1950.

She says there are many ways to get screened, such as a stool based test, a color guard, and a colonoscopy.

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