The Importance of Early Screening, Biomarker Testing, and Support in Colorectal Cancer Care

It is important that physicians provide resources and support to patients after a diagnosis, including information on biomarker testing an tumor type, while also making sure they have a strong support system, says Michael Sapienza, CEO of the Colorectal Cancer Alliance.

Transcript

With screening guidelines now recommending that people start at age 45, what more can be done to increase awareness and access to screenings?

The Colorectal Cancer Alliance has a campaign called Lead From Behind. We've partnered with Maximum Effort, Ryan Reynolds’ agency to get the word out about screening starting at age 45 or if you have a family history 10 years prior to that first-degree relative that has had colon cancer. We've also partnered with Dak Prescott from the Dallas Cowboys and many, many others across the country.

We're working day in and day out on awareness campaigns and then social media programs. We partnered with the American Cancer Society last year as well. But I also think it's really incumbent upon family physicians to really be talking about this because of the young onset rise, of course, but also just because it's the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United States, and they do have a responsibility to make sure every one of their patients is screened. The Alliance, we're putting out campaigns that are reached by billions across the world and viewed about 30 to 40 million times. But I also encourage primary care physicians, etc., to really take it seriously. If somebody comes in and they potentially have symptoms, they need to get into a colonoscopy right away if they're under the screening age, but if they are at screening age, to make sure that they are actually doing the screening itself.

What are the biggest challenges patients face after diagnosis, and how can they best navigate them?

I think the biggest challenge after facing a diagnosis is knowing where to go, knowing what questions to ask knowing what is my first step, my second step, my third step, my fourth step. Patients oftentimes, they hear the word cancer and they freeze. And so, I think it's really, really important for organizations like the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, we tell people to go to colorectalcancer.org because we have so many resources. We have navigators that those patients can talk to. We have a buddy program where patients can actually talk to another patient that has maybe potentially gone through that specific diagnosis. We have tons of resources, videos, etc., that that are online to help [answer], “All right, what questions do I need to ask?” But the most important thing, in my opinion, is 2-fold. One, knowing what your tumor looks like under a microscope, and so that's called your biomarker report. We you want to have the right medicine at the right time, right? When we treated cancer, we would do what's called, you've probably heard this, like in World War II, we would carpet bomb everybody, just like tons of bombs whatnot, right? Now we have precision bombs, and it's the same thing in cancer, but to know which precision bomb to use, we have to know what your cancer looks like under a microscope. So really, truly understanding your biomarker report, understanding if you have a biomarker that may make you eligible for immunotherapy, or may make you eligible right up front, the beginning of treatment, even before surgery, that might be a targeted agent; all of those things that can be that precise medicine will help save your life. That's the first one, the biomarker report.

And then the second one is really just to make sure you have a support system, that you have a caregiver in place, that someone may potentially be going with you to those appointments. That's really your kind of right hand or left hand person taking notes and making sure that they are keeping an eye on you from a mental health perspective and from just general overall perspective. So again, I think the 2 things [are] knowing what your tumor looks like, so you can have the most precise information, and then making sure you have somebody in a support system to help support you through the journey.