Fast facts on colon cancer:
Here are some key points about colon cancer. More detail is in the main article.
Colon cancer affects the large intestine and it usually starts with polyps in the wall of the intestine.
Symptoms may not appear until a later stage, but if they do, gastrointestinal problems are common symptoms.
Treatment involves a combination of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery, possibly resulting in a colostomy.
A healthy lifestyle with a high-fiber, low-fat diet can help prevent colon cancer, and screening can detect it in the early stages.
Why do people born from 1945-1965 have such high rates of hepatitis C?
The reason that people born from 1945–1965
have high rates of hepatitis C is not completely understood. Most baby boomers are believed to have become infected in the 1960s through
the 1980s when transmission of hepatitis C
was highest.
Hepatitis C is primarily spread through
contact with blood from an infected person. Baby boomers could have gotten infected from medical equipment or procedures before universal precautions and infection control procedures were adopted. Others could have gotten infected from contaminated blood and blood products before widespread screening virtually eliminated the virus from the blood supply by 1992. Sharing needles or equipment used to prepare or inject drugs, even if only
once in the past, could spread hepatitis C.
Still, many people do not know how or when they were infected.
What should baby boomers know about hepatitis C?
Hepatitis C is a liver disease that results from infection with the hepatitis C virus. Some people who get infected are able to clear, or get rid of, the hepatitis C virus, but most people who get infected develop a chronic, or long-term, infection. Over time, chronic hepatitis C can cause serious health problems. In fact, hepatitis C is a leading cause of liver cancer and the leading cause of liver transplants. Treatments are now available that can cure hepatitis C.
CDC recommends that everyone born from
1945–1965 get tested for hepatitis C.
