While men may try to put off their yearly checkup, it’s important to get it scheduled sooner than later. During that appointment, you can also talk to your provider about cancer screenings. Mary Lee Villanueva, MD, an oncologist with Avera Cancer Institute in Yankton, explains which screenings men need to consider and how often they need to be done.
What are some of the cancer screenings men should be aware of?
There’s several that men should be aware of including screenings for colon cancer, prostate cancer screening, as well as lung cancer screening.
At what age should you start considering these screenings?
It’s all different depending on risk factors. Colon cancer screening has recently changed. It used to be that the average risk person would get a colonoscopy at the age of 50, but now that has changed to 45.
Typically for prostate cancer, it’s a discussion with the primary care provider usually, what are the risks, what are the benefits, but for the average age it would be 50. Of course if there are higher risk patients, then maybe more in the 40 to 45 range.
We do have lung cancer screenings CT scans that people can utilize. It is for people that are generally over 50 that have least a 20 pack smoking history.
Why should men stay up to date on cancer screenings?
I think it’s important because even for like colon cancer screening, if we find small, asymptomatic cancer or premalignant lesion, those can be removed earlier and it can make a difference in their overall survival, it can make a difference in if they have a polyp removed it can prevent them from developing a colon cancer, so the sooner that people know about that, the more proactive they can be.
Can these screenings help detect cancer at an earlier stage?
I think any time that we catch a cancer diagnosis early, is going to be better for the patient. Even thinking about lung cancer screening, if we detect someone that has a stage 1, their overall survival is going to be different than if someone doesn’t have a lung cancer screening CT scan and we see them when they have stage 3 or 4 cancer because their five year overall survival is going to be a lot different than if we caught it sooner at a stage 1 or 2.
What can men be doing at a younger age to stay healthy?
We have the age we say we are going to screen people for prostate, for colon, for lung, but as far as younger individuals it’s all about living a healthy lifestyle, that’s what we all should be doing, but it’s hard. We should eat healthy, we should get enough exercise, we shouldn’t smoke, those are all things we should be doing throughout our life.
Learn more about cancer screenings and cancer care at Avera
