What lengths would you go to to keep from getting cancer?

For Jean Berry of Maysville, Mo., the answer to that question for years was the colorectal health kits provided annually by Heartland Regional Medical Center. The kits diagnose the health of the colon and rectum by detecting microscopic amounts of blood that could indicate cancerous or possibly precancerous polyps.

Mrs. Berry’s tests came back negative until 2003, when the detection of blood led her to undergo other tests that revealed she had colon cancer.

“I had no symptoms,” says Mrs. Berry, who is a retired teacher. “I didn’t feel anything. If I hadn’t been screening, I probably wouldn’t have found the cancer until I became sick.”

If she’d waited that long, she might not be alive today. Having had two aunts who died from colon cancer that wasn’t caught early, Mrs. Berry credits early detection with saving her life.

Treating her cancer required removing a portion of her colon, but no chemotherapy or radiation. And five years and several colonoscopies later, she’s still cancer free.

But many people aren’t so fortunate.

“If you look at the number of deaths from colon cancer each year in the U.S., it’s around 50,000,” says Dr. Rony Abou-Jawde, a medical oncologist at Heartland. “One of the best ways to prevent these deaths is to detect the cancer much earlier. It really can save people’s lives.”

This statistic on the number of deaths annually from colon cancer came from research done by the American Cancer Society, which also reports that colon cancer is the third leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States and that nearly 150,000 new cases are expected to occur in the country this year.

In an effort to catch these cases in their early stages, Heartland sends out about 2,500 test kits each March to people, mostly age 50 and older, who request them. The kits, which must be returned by the end of this month, include three slides on which the user places smears from stool samples. By capturing samples once a day over a period of three days, it’s possible to detect any bleeding that occurs during that time, says Janet Schultz, a nurse in Heartland’s Cancer Center.

“All it’s testing for is blood, but there are many reasons there could be blood,” she says. “And losing blood is never normal.”

She adds that in addition to leading to a detection of polyps in the colon, positive results from a home test kit also can lead doctors to find other problems that may exist, such as Crohn’s disease or cancer in a patient’s mouth, esophagus or stomach.

These problems usually are detected by upper or lower endoscopies, in which a piece of equipment captures images of the gastrointestinal tract, or by a colonoscopy or other procedure that captures images from the inside of the colon.

Having a colonoscopy every 10 years beginning at age 50, in addition to completing a home test every year, is also an important measure to take in screening for colon cancer, says Dr. Byron Charles, a general surgeon at St. Francis Hospital & Health Services in Maryville, Mo.

“The test kits probably miss at least 25 percent of colon cancer cases,” he says, adding that, by comparison, a colonoscopy is almost 100 percent effective in finding polyps — but only about a third of those who need them are getting them.

Other procedures, such as barium enemas and sigmoidoscopies, are less invasive and can be used instead of colonoscopies, but Dr. Charles recommends colonoscopies over these due to the fact that they allow surgeons to remove polyps as soon as they’re discovered.

And with advances that have been made in anesthesia, he says, a vast majority of people now experience no discomfort during colonoscopies. This is something Mrs. Berry can attest to, having now undergone her fair share of them.

“I would encourage everyone to do it,” she says. “It’s worth it if it saves your life.”

Get tested

Although the time has passed to receive a free colorectal health kit from Heartland Regional Medical Center, many doctors have kits on-hand to provide to patients, says Janet Schultz, a nurse in Heartland’s Cancer Center. If you’re at least 50 years old or if you have a family history of colon cancer, ask your family physician about obtaining a kit.

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.