SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Deaths from colon cancer for people younger than 55 have increased 1% per year from 2008 to 2017.
And while the overall death rate continues to drop for both men and women, the screening age was recently lowered from 50 to 45 to help catch signs sooner than later. Joanne Hufford is urging everyone in that age group to get checked. She was diagnosed with the disease after a routine colonoscopy nine years ago.
"It allowed me to find out that I had colon cancer at just stage one," Hufford said. "For me, basically it was just a surgery and then recovering afterwards, just kind of taking things a little bit easy."
After her diagnosis, Hufford found her community among survivors with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. Now, she's a top fundraiser with a mission of raising awareness and urging early detection.
"We've saved lives with early screenings," Dr. Merle Sogge, with Kaiser Permanente, said. "We've had a 25% reduction in the incidence of colon cancer in our Kaiser population, as well as a 50% reduction in deaths from advanced colon cancer."
Detection isn't only found through a colonoscopy, there's an at home test that Sogge said is just as effective.
"You have a little probe that you put into the stool. You put it in the container, seal it up and mail it away. It literally takes just seconds in those seconds, saves lives," Sogge said.
"It's one of the cancers that people are often scared or reluctant to talk about, but talking about it and letting people become more aware of colon cancer and the proper screening so they can hopefully end this cancer in their lifetime," Hufford said.
Sacramento's Walk to End Colon Cancer is scheduled to take place at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 26, in Land Park. Registration is free.
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