March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. According to a new report from the American Cancer Society, rates of colorectal cancer, or colon cancer, are decreasing steeply among older people in the U.S. Over the last ten years, colon cancer incidence rates have fallen by thirty percent among people 50 and over, with the largest fall in those over 65. The report says that those rates are falling because of colonoscopy screening, which can detect and remove precancerous growths. Screening has nearly tripled among those aged 50 to 75, from nineteen percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2010. Ashley Oliver, CNP and Gastroenterology specialist at Sanford Center for Digestive Health in Sioux Falls, joined the program to discuss the declining rates of colorectal cancer in South Dakota.
Rates Of Colon Cancer Declining Among Older People
