Word: colons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...some of Mother Nature's own ideas to design new chemotherapy drugs. Scientists at Vion Pharmaceuticals of New Haven, Conn., are interested in co-opting a group of Salmonella bacteria that normally attack the intestines and cause dysentery. Salmonella, it happens, also happily infect all kinds of tumors, including colon cancer. By loading genetically crippled salmonella with one of the body's own cancer-fighting chemicals (a molecule called tumor necrosis factor), researchers at Vion hope to destroy or at least shrink a wide variety of cancers. Safety studies in humans are planned for later this year...
Your best bet to beat colon cancer today is to catch it early--and that means regular screening. It would help if there were just one screening test and some simple rules to follow about when to get it done, but that's not the case. So pay attention to the following guidelines...
First, a warning. If you experience any symptoms--especially bleeding from the rectum, unusual constipation, abdominal cramping or a narrowing of the feces--talk to your doctor immediately about taking a peek inside your colon...
...more on that later.) If you have a family history of the disease, particularly among your siblings or parents, you may need to start in your 30s or 40s. A good rule of thumb is to begin getting tested 10 years before the youngest age at which colon cancer was diagnosed in any member of your family. "Don't wait for an invitation," says Dr. Bernard Levin of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. "Tell your doctor, I want to get screened...
...good idea to keep track of other diseases that have affected your family. There's growing evidence that uterine and ovarian cancer may be genetically related to colon cancer. So if your Aunt Mary died of uterine cancer, don't assume you're in the clear if you've had a hysterectomy or if you're a man. You could be at greater risk of colon cancer as well. The same holds true if you suffer from inflammatory conditions of the intestines, like Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis...