MORE BARBADIANS are developing colon cancer, and they are developing it earlier in life too.
That troubling trend now has the focus of the country’s cancer specialists, as more than 100 Barbadians are presenting with either colon or rectal cancer every year.
And the numbers don’t differ much between men or women. The news came from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s head of surgery, Dr Margaret Oshea.
The general surgeon is quite happy with the emphasis being placed on breast and prostate cancer awareness in Barbados, but believes more could be done to cut back the incidence of colon and rectal cancer.
“What is not publicised as much, is cancers of the colon and rectum. From the last output from the Cancer Registry in 2008, the incidence in Barbados is about 130 cases per year for men and about the same for women,” Oshea revealed to the SUNDAY SUN in a recent interview. (BA)
