Small Price for Prevention
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“In residency, I changed my focus from oncology to gastroenterology. Instead of being on the treatment side, I could now be on the prevention side,” reveals Dr. Tina Storage, a clinical instructor at UCLA Health Burbank Primary & Specialty Care clinic. “There was an 18-year-old who had severe anemia secondary to colon cancer. She had ulcerative colitis, so she should have been screened for colon cancer, but she wasn’t. I was really heartbroken that she was so young and passing from this preventable disease. If colon cancer is detected at a localized stage, a person’s survival is upward of 90%. If we can detect precancerous polyps before they even turn into cancer, we can prevent the diagnosis. A colonoscopy feels like a small price to pay to change the alarming statistic of 50,000 people dying of colon cancer in 2019.”
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