Is Colorectal Cancer Hereditary?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Fola May
In this program:
Is colorectal cancer only caused by diet and lifestyle risk factors? Dr. Fola May from UCLA Health answers a question about whether colorectal cancer is hereditary and shares advice about screening guidelines.
Transcript
Broderick Rodell:
So, Dr. May, we have an important question from our audience, "My father was diagnosed with colorectal cancer when I was 15. What risk do I face or other family members face?" So basically, is there a hereditary connection here?
Dr. Fola May:
Yeah, and first of all, I feel for the audience member who brought up this question, and I hope that his or her father is okay. First of all, I applaud that the family is sharing this history of colorectal cancer in the family. Unfortunately, there's such a stigma about the colon, about the rectum, about the back ends of our body, about intimate areas of our body that many families don't even talk about this diagnosis when it happens. So I applaud this family for talking about it and for sharing the history, because there is an increased risk in this audience member who called in who asked this question. The biggest risk is if the father was 50 or younger when he had colorectal cancer, and also if there are other members of the family other than the father who had colorectal cancer, two or more family members of any age, then yes, we do worry about you that audience member having an increased risk of colorectal cancer. So what does that mean? What it means is that we are extra careful about those symptoms that we mentioned earlier, and we actually will screen family members of individuals who've had colorectal cancer early, so instead of screening at 45 as we do for the average-risk individual.
If you've had a family history of colorectal cancer, we actually will start your screening at age 40. So, this is why this information is so important for families to share. This audience member who asked the question should start screening earlier than the average risk individual, and specifically even though there are many types of screening tests that we offer, this individual should opt for the colonoscopy as the screening test of choice.
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