MSI Press Blog

  People talk about “screening” as if it were a moral duty — something you simply do . But what if you can’t? What if your anatomy, your airway, or your medical fragility make the “routine” colonoscopy more dangerous than the cancer it’s meant to prevent? That’s not hypothetical. It’s real life for some of us. Can Colon Cancer Run in a Family? Yes. Colon cancer can cluster in families for two reasons: Shared genes — inherited mutations like Lynch syndrome or familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) dramatically raise risk. Shared environments and habits — diet, microbiome, inflammation, and lifestyle patterns that echo across generations. When a doctor says “colon cancer runs in your family,” they’re not just talking about DNA. They’re talking about pattern recognition — the way illness repeats itself when biology and circumstance intertwine. When You Can’t Have a Colonoscopy For most people, colonoscopy is the gold standard. For some, it’s a genuine threat. If your airway is unst...

  Aging brings many questions about medical care, and colonoscopies are no exception. When should you start them? When should you stop? The answers aren’t as straightforward as you might think, especially when family history, anesthesia risks, and individual health concerns come into play. When to Start and Why? For most people, the recommended age to begin screening for colorectal cancer is 45 (lowered from 50 in recent years due to increasing cases in younger adults). However, if you have a strong family history—like my siblings and I, who all have had pre-cancerous polyps found at each colonoscopy—you may need to start even earlier. Doctors recommend earlier and more frequent screenings if you have: A family history of colorectal cancer or pre-cancerous polyps Certain genetic conditions like Lynch Syndrome A history of inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis) When to Stop and Why? Many doctors advise stopping colonoscopies at 75 —but is that t...

  Carl Leaver , to whom Cancer Diary and the CCC are dedicated, has a lookalike son. Their interests and behaviors are essentially the same. Carl's son CB has his same build -- except that he is a foot shorter, part of the CHARGE Syndome with which he was born. Carl died of Cancer of Unknown Primary; however, his oncologist believed (gut instinct plus experience) that it started in the colon. Carl could have had regular colonoscopies, but he foolishly chose not to because he was super-healthy. (The only time he was sick enough to vomit was one day when he was 21.) Unfortunately, he died super-healthy. Never vomited again, ever. Never felt sick until cancer wore out his energy and his muscles and then his thinking capacity. So, lesson learned? CB gets regular colonoscopies? His siblings do, and his brother has had some polyps removed. CB, however, cannot. As his gastroenterologist says, as a result of CHARGE Syndrome, CB has a 35% chance of dying from any procedure that requires int...

   54-year old Jason Maman put off checking out the reasons for his stomach pain for a year. It turned out to be stage 3 colon cancer. Read the article here .  This is a bit different from the delayed diagnosis described in last week's (May 13) Cancer Diary blog post. In that case, the patient knew something was wrong; it took too long for doctors to take her seriously and to get an accurate diagnosis. Carl , too, put off getting a diagnosis for something he thought was just stomach pain . He consulted "wisely" (right?) with our daughter who had had her gall bladder removed years earlier when he thought it might be his gall bladder. He decided to just monitor it for a while and see if it got worse. He adapted his food intake for gall bladder management. It did not work. To his defense, this occurred as covid was winding down, and doctors in our area were not seeing patients in their offices, just telehealth -- and his long-term doctor had left when the pandemic started to...