Simplified: Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month may have just ended, but as Millennials age (who me?), it's important to note medical recommendations for a number of different types of cancer. Here's what you need to know.
Why it matters
- Doctors are seeing more people get colon cancer at younger ages, said Dr. Patrick Brau, family medicine physician with Sanford Health. That's why screening recommendations recently shifted from age 50 to age 45.
- It's also important to know your family medical history, Brau said. If you have a parent who had cancer, you'll likely want to get screened at a younger age than the typical recommendations.
- Screenings can help doctors catch the cancer at the earliest stage possible, which means treatments can typically be "less dramatic and usually better tolerated," Brau said.
"You’re not giving the cancer a lot of time to grow," he said. "You're not giving that cancer time to go through a process called metastasizing, where it spreads to other parts of the body."
What screenings do I need? And when?
All adults are recommended to have an annual wellness visit, and starting at age 21 in addition to cancer screenings, folks should also get a cholesterol screening at least once before age 30 and every five years until age 45.
For young men, Brau said it's a good idea to start familiarizing yourself with your anatomy in your 20s to be able to identify any testicular lumps that may occur.
For young women, cervical cancer screenings should start around age 21 with a pap smear and HPV cotest to help identify any high risk strains of the virus that could put people at risk for cervical cancer.
Once you hit your 40s, which, I'm sorry to say Millennials, is us now (or soon), the recommendations are a little more involved.
- Mammograms to detect breast cancer start at age 40.
- Colorectal cancer screenings start at 45, or younger if you have a history in your family of colon cancer.
- Lung cancer screenings annually for high-risk patients start at age 50.
- Prostate cancer screenings start at age 50.
I'm scared now.
That's OK, Brau said. Don't let that fear of being diagnosed keep you from going to the doctor.
"Most people aren't going to have colon cancer," he said. "Most people aren't going to have cervical cancer, but I think there's a lot of times in our lives where we're going to have questions about our body."
That's why it's important to establish a relationship with a primary care provider who you can trust when these questions do come up, he added.
"There's a lot of us out here," Brau said. "All of us are willing to help."
