Jennifer Hilton found out she had colon cancer shortly after feeling a small lump on the right side of her abdomen. After undergoing emergency surgery to have the cancer removed, she's currently in the middle of chemotherapy treatments.
"I was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer," she said. "I had a large tumor that was breaking through my colon wall, and I had 18 lymph nodes removed; there was cancer in two of those. I'm 45 years old."
Hilton said colon cancer was never something she thought she was at risk for. She had no family history, and the recommended screening age for both men and women is 50.
Now a team of researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Northwestern University say people with variation of the gene adiponectin, linked to fat cells, may help determine if they are more or less likely to develop colon cancer.
"This is the first time a gene has actually been identified, and a variation of the gene, which may lead to someone's increased risk of colon cancer," explained Dr. Allyson Ocean of New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Researchers have uncovered new information that may help determine how likely you are to develop colon cancer. As Kafi Drexel explains in the following report, the risk may depend on if you have a variation of a certain gene.
Ocean, a medical oncologist and Hilton's doctor at Weill Cornell Medical Center, said while this latest bit of information is intriguing, the science still has a way to go.
"A few years down the road we may be able to check levels of this hormone to see whether a patient is at risk of developing colon cancer or not. But we're not there yet," she said. "The standard ways of diagnosing colorectal cancer, which include a flexible sigmoidoscopy or a colonoscopy or an examination by your doctor, should all continue as the mainstay of diagnosis."
The hope is more science will lead to developing ways of diagnosing colon cancer earlier, before waiting to do a colonoscopy or before symptoms develop.
Patients like Hilton, diagnosed with cancer before the recommended screening age, and with limited known risk factors, hope that happens.
"I think that if there is science that detects genes, and you can have a blood test as part of your annual exam, or if there were more blood tests for cancer marks or if the colonoscopy was done earlier, anything to help detect it," said Hilton. "Because the key thing with colon cancer is that it is actually preventable if it is detected early."