New Resources Help Answer Questions About Colorectal Cancer

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

Every four minutes someone in the United States is diagnosed with colorectal cancer. 55,000 people die from the disease each year and 150,000 people are newly diagnosed. Waging the battle against this disease requires educational and support tools to help patients and their families cope, allowing them to successfully continue their daily activities.

To help raise public awareness about the resources available to patients and discuss the importance of early detection, the Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) and the Colon Cancer Alliance (CCA) are teaming up to share information about living with colorectal cancer. They are designed to address some of the fundamental questions associated with living with this disease; choosing a health care team, knowing what questions to ask, obtaining financial and other resources for treatment and learning how to take control of your situation.

One imperative recommendation is that anyone over the age of 50 should get a colonoscopy especially if there is a family history of colorectal cancer. More than nine in 10 new cases are found in people 50 years or older. If detected in its early stages, colorectal cancer is more than 90 percent curable. For more information, visit ccalliance.org.

Produced for Amgen, Inc.