N.L. set to announce more cancer screening
Last Updated: Thursday, March 18, 2010 | 12:34 PM NT
CBC News
Newfoundland and Labrador will announce a new provincial colon cancer screening program Friday, CBC News has learned.
Sources tell CBC the program will target people without a family history of cancer.
Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest rate of new cases and the highest death rate from colon cancer in the country.
Canadian Cancer Society numbers show that more than 400 new cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed in the province annually, and every year colorectal cancer kills about 200 people in Newfoundland and Labrador. The province has one of the highest rates in the world of familial colon cancers - those that are linked to a genetic mutation that runs in families.
Physicians and patients have been calling for better screening for years.
Last fall, New Brunswick's announced it will spend $3 million annually on colorectal cancer screening.
Dr. David Saltman, the chair of the oncology department at Memorial University and a physician specializing in treating gastrointestinal cancers, called the lack of such a program in Newfoundland and Labrador "a tragedy."
"If you can find these cancers early, then over 90 per cent of them should be preventable," Saltman told CBC News last December.
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