Colon cancer
The non-profit organization Stop Bowel Cancer has Mister de Owl from the children’s program De Fabeltjeskrant calling on people in their fifties to be tested against bowel cancer. Children who watched the program in the 1970s are today at an age that puts them in the risk group. It is no coincidence that the campaign is launched in March, International Bowel Cancer Month.
About 90 percent of colon cancer patients are over 50 years old. From their fiftieth birthday, Flemish people receive an invitation to participate in the population screening for colon cancer. The test is very simple, says Stop Darmkanker, but half of Flemish people over fifty do not take part in the test.
“The test remains untouched, especially for people between 50 and 54 years old. They may feel ‘too young’ to get colon cancer,” explains Luc Colemont, gastrointestinal specialist and director of Stop Bowel Cancer. “They miss an opportunity to detect colon cancer at an early stage. If detected early, there is more than a 90 percent chance of cure.”
Aging
Stop Bowel Cancer wants to give the doubters a boost and looked for an original way to do so. “We hope that a prominent figure like Mr. Owl will strike the right chord. Colon cancer is not a myth,” says Colemont.
He predicts that “an avalanche of colon cancers” is coming our way. On the one hand due to the aging of the population, and on the other hand because colon cancer is occurring earlier and earlier. Already, 8,000 people over the age of fifty are diagnosed in our country and eight Belgians die every day from the disease.
