rom our genetics to the stress of our day-to-day lives, diet, exercise and plain old bad luck, many factors contribute to cancer. With delays in preventive screenings dramatically intensified by the global pandemic, the time is now to make 2022 the year you get up to date.
A lump in your chest or blood in your stool are obvious signs—but the many screening and prevention tools offered at St. Clair Health can lead to early detection that increases survival rates. Put simply: if you wait until symptoms arrive, your condition may have advanced to a stage where your options are more limited than they would have been with earlier cancer screening.
In addition to your annual screening mammogram, the Breast Care Center now offers the Tyrer-Cuzik Risk Assessment Calculator to help calculate a patient’s likelihood of developing breast cancer both within the next 10 years and over the course of their lifetime—helping to catch cases before they even exist.
When it comes to diagnostics, colonoscopy remains the most sensitive and specific test to detect precancerous polyps and colorectal cancer—definitive and backed by overwhelming data that places it head and shoulders above other options.
In addition to breast and colorectal, St. Clair offers screenings and a full range of services for prostate, lung, skin and ovarian cancers, and more. Some health care systems may not have the diagnostic expertise. Others may not have surgical capabilities. And some institutions don’t have board-certified oncologists to round out your integrated cancer care team. Should your preventive screening lead you to be diagnosed with cancer, the state-of-the-art Dunlap Family Outpatient Center puts all of that together in one place to deliver advanced care close to home.
To read more about how early detection can lead to better treatment options and outcomes, read the Winter 2022 edition of St. Clair’s HouseCall magazine by clicking here. [1]