The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
PROMOTING AWARENESS
Mayor urges residents to be screened for colon cancer
TORRINGTON >> On behalf of her city, Mayor Elinor Carbone recently issued a proclamation urging city residents to be screened for colon cancer, marking an annual effort to raise awareness about the virtues of being checked for the disease.
“What we really want to do is work in partnership with the endoscopy center here, with the doctors and the nurses, in raising awareness of the importance of making your appointments, keeping those appointments,” said Carbone. “Because early detection is the only the way to cure this cancer, and they are already showing significant gains on this — the number of deaths as a result of colon cancer are reducing — but what they’re also finding is that there are incidences of this cancer at earlier ages. So raising awareness and making sure that people remember the importance of these screenings is vastly important.”
Robert Lindenberg, M.D., of Connecticut G.I., believes there is a level of fear about being checked for colo-nor cancer, which makes the effort to raise awareness about the virtues of the test more important.
“It’s one of the few internal malignancies that we could actually screen for, and reduce the risk of ever getting cancer — which I think is far more significant than what can be done for other cancers,” said Lindenberg. “I think there’s a lot of fear, especially when we talk about colon cancer, as far as getting tests done . ... I think the awareness to know that this is a very common thing that we do, and what benefit it can afford makes going through the test a lot easier.”
Emily Barbero, a city employee who attended the proclamation ceremony last week, said she had been informed by Lindenberg that she had cancer after a routine procedure, and now, has been clean for a year and a half.
“I tell everybody just please go for their normal, routine visits, because
the prep work is worse than the procedure. But it’s something that everybody should do — you have to do it,” said Barbero.
Colorectal cancer, according to the Center for Disease Control website, is “the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States,” with 140,000 Americans diagnosed with the disease each each, and 50,000 passing away from the afflication.
“But this disease is highly preventable, by getting screened beginning at age 50,” wrote the CDC. “Screening tests help prevent colorectal cancer by finding precancerous polyps (abnormal growths) so they can be removed. Screening also finds this cancer early, when treatment can be most effective.”
Information about Charlotte Hungerford Hospital’s Center for Cancer Care can be found at http://www.charlottehungerford.org/ services/cancer/. Information about colon cancer can be found at www.cancer.org