14 DAY TRIAL // A recent report published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that colon cancer affects a larger number of men than women. The new study has been carried out by Polish researchers at the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center in Warsaw who investigated data on more than 50,000 individuals, both men and women, previously scanned for the particular type of cancer.
Results of colonoscopies analyzed by the team of researchers (colonoscopy is a test used by doctors used to track down colon disorders, including colon cancer) showed that men, independent of age, have a 73% higher risk of developing the particular type of cancer than their female counterparts.
The findings of the current Polish study come to contradict American Cancer Society statistics and statements, according to which colon cancer is as common among women as it is among men. Also, Dr. Jerald Wishner, Director of the Colorectal Cancer Program and Colorectal Surgery at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, New York said that findings of the recent study should not be misinterpreted and think that women are not exposed to risks of colon cancer. He imperatively advised everyone to get screened for the fearful condition, whether male or female:
"Everybody needs to get screened. The worst thing that could happen is for people to interpret that we don't have to worry about women. Seeing the precursors to colon cancer more in men than in women -- that's been out there for a long time. But I would have a problem focusing screening more on men than women because colon cancer and polyps are still very common in women."
Most medical experts had a rather negative reaction to the results of the Polish investigation which pointed to men as being more at risk of developing colon cancer than women. However, the team involved in the research did not advise women to be less careful about possible symptoms or the development of malignant colon tumors.
Sustaining Dr. Wishner's opinion, Dr. Andrejs Avots-Avotins, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine with the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine cautioned: "There have been some minimal differences between men and women, but I don't know that there's enough information to start changing guidelines. Colon cancer is an equal-opportunity cancer. We shouldn't be characterizing men and women differently."