Greg Roach's Berkshires Blog
Monday, October 15, 2007
  Proud Sibling Moment

Upon the announcement that cancer rates overall, and colorectal cancer deaths specifically, have noticeably declined, I give you the Colorectal Cancer Coalition. They are a Washington DC based patient advocacy lobby that is incredibly effective in the trenches of policy making on Capital Hill and with agencies such as the FDA.

And most importantly they are a phenomenal resource for patients and families to educate themselves about the disease and the various option open to those who get a bad diagnoses.

Currently they are in the midst of a new campaign called Cover Your Butt which asks everyone to call their congresscritters and lobby for coverage of preventative colonoscopy screening to be included in all medical insurance. It is frightening to think that such a simple procedure that can *prevent* cancer from occurring, as well as diagnose and treat the disease, is often not covered by standard healthcare policies.

My connection to this group? The Chair of the Board and founder of this organization is Nancy Roach, my sister.
 
Comments:
I think I read the other day where there is great promise in using a CAT scan as an equally accurate and considerably less invasive alternative for this screening. And that a group of doctors, can't remember where, have convinced some insurance companies to cover the process as a cost savings measure.
 
Great news if true.
 
The procedure is called a virtual colonoscopy and used to detect polyps. If found than a tradition colonoscopy is performed to remove the polyps.
 
Greg, thanks for this post :-) You can join the Coalition of Butts - just let me know if you are willing!

On the virtual colonoscopy - it may offer a way to cut the current backlog of colonoscopies - there aren't enough gastroenterologists to go around. At the same time, you still need to do the prep, which is the true pain in the a** of colonoscopy.

Nancy
 
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