Colon Cancer: What are the risk factors? | Norton Cancer Institute

Michael F. Driscoll, M.D., medical oncologist with Norton Cancer Institute, answers the question, what are the risk factors for colon cancer?

There are certain risk factors for colon cancer. These risk factors tend to be more familial based. Oftentimes people will inherit genes that will cause them a higher risk of developing a colon cancer.

There's a syndrome called Lynch syndrome which is a defect in the DNA mismatch repair enzymes and that defect causes people to potentially develop not only colon cancer but multiple cancers - other cancers such as ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, pancreatic cancer, and even brain cancer. Folks that have Lynch syndrome tend to present with earlier colon cancer often times in there thirties and forties.

Usually if we find that somebody has Lynch syndrome or suspect somebody has Lynch syndrome, we invariably always refer those people over to genetic counseling. Our genetics department where they cannot only get counseling for other malignancies that they you know might potentially be susceptible to but obviously to test them from the get go to test to see if they have the genes responsible for causing that syndrome.

Another process that people can inherit is something called FAP, which is familial adenomatous polyposis. This is a condition where folks are more likely to develop polyps in the colon - oftentimes many hundreds or even thousands of polyps in the colon which are precursor to the development of colon cancer. Oftentimes these folks will develop colon cancer in their 20's so you know if we suspect somebody has one of these syndromes we invariably always get them set up for genetic testing and genetic counseling.

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