Women underrate risk for colon cancer, survey shows.

2004 JUN 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Women significantly underrate their risk for colon cancer and are not as concerned about the disease as they should be, according to a new Good Housekeeping survey conducted on behalf of the Entertainment Industry Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (EIF's NCCRA).

Although almost the same number of women and men are diagnosed with colon cancer every year (73,320 and 73,620 respectively), and nearly as many women die from it as men (28,410 and 28,320), women tend to focus on the risk of breast, ovarian and lung cancers and think of colon cancer as a "men's disease," according to the survey.

Katie Couric, who launched EIF's NCCRA after her husband, Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer in 1998, urged physicians attending the meeting to educate their female patients about the importance of screening for colon cancer. Colorectal cancer is curable more than 90% of the time when the disease is detected early.

"Among the major forms of cancer, colon cancer is the equal opportunity killer," said EIF's NCCRA co-founder Katie Couric in announcing results of the survey to physicians at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 52nd Annual Clinical Meeting.

"Women vastly underestimate their risk for this disease. Given that gynecologists function as the primary healthcare provider for many women, we are asking the OB-GYNs for help in addressing this problem," Couric said.

The survey showed that more than a quarter of American women think that men have a greater risk of colon cancer than women. While colon cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men and women combined, following only lung cancer, only 13% of women responding to the survey realized that colon cancer is one of the top two cancer killers.

The ...