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  Home Page » Features » Health » Durangoan Touts Colonoscopy Benefits

Durangoan touts colonoscopy benefits

by Dale Rodebaugh
Herald Staff Writer A stitch in time saves nine is an aphorism that describes to a T the wisdom of having regular colonoscopies, Brian Kimmel says, recalling a hunch he had four years ago to undergo the procedure, which can detect and prevent colon cancer.

"I had no family history of colon cancer - parents or siblings - but at age 60, I decided it was time," Kimmel said in an interview last week. "They discovered I had a clean colon except for one large polyp pretty high up in a position that they couldn't snip with their snake."

Kimmel, a Durango land-use planner, consulted physicians, including naturopathic doctors. Ultimately, he chose to be operated on at San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, where surgeons found that the core of the polyp had cancerous cells.

"I dodged a bullet," Kimmel said. "If I hadn't had the colon-oscopy, I could have had colon cancer."

Indeed, the danger was caught in time, said Dr. Patrick Gerstenberger at Digestive Health Associates in Durango. A colonos-copy - the examination of the large colon with a camera on a flexible tube inserted through the anus to detect abnormal tissue growth or lesions - is very effective in detecting potential colon cancer, said Gerstenberger, a gastroenterologist.

In a March 23 column for The Durango Herald, Gerstenberger said: "Until it is advanced, colon cancer is painless. Most people who have it feel perfectly well. Colon cancer usually progresses very slowly, but as time goes by, the chance for a cure, which hinges on early detection, is lost."

Polyps usually can be removed by one of several methods during the colonoscopy and analyzed for cancer.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drive home the lethal nature of colorectal cancer. While the number of colorectal cancer cases per 100,000 population in the United States is 48.3 - fourth behind prostate cancer (142.4), breast cancer (117.7) and lung/bronchial cancer (67.7), it is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the country. Statistics are from 2005. Fifty thousand people die each year from colorectal cancer.

"Screening for breast cancer and prostate cancer can detect disease, but as for preventing death, breast cancer screening is 25 percent effective at best and there is ongoing discussion about whether screening for prostate cancer is even worthwhile," Gerstenberger said. "On the other hand, a colonoscopy is 60 to 70 percent effective in preventing death from colon cancer.

"Unfortunately, 40 to 60 percent of people who should be screened for colon cancer - age 50 and above unless there is a family history of the disease and then it should be earlier - don't do it for one reason or another," he said. "Some people don't even want to talk about it.

"We want to test people who feel perfectly well," said Gerstenberger, noting that polyps precede cancer by five to 10 years. "We want to find the problem before it becomes cancer, when it's quite curable."

Kimmel, who followed up with a colonoscopy a few months after his surgery and again last year, lamented the hesitancy of Americans to talk about the procedure.

"I didn't feel the colon-purging process in preparation for the colonoscopy was onerous because I knew what I was doing was for a good reason," Kimmel said.

"The message I want to get out is: 'Don't put it off; get it done.' We're not good at preventive medicine, so we need to get out in front of this."

daler@durangoherald.com