Cancer Prevention and Screening
By Scott Sarran, M.D.
Lutheran General Fitness Center

First, it's important to emphasize what we can do to prevent cancer. The key here, as in many other disease prevention strategies, is a healthy, balanced lifestyle: No smoking (the most important of all), maintenance of ideal body weight, a diet low in saturated fats and high in natural sources of vitamins, minerals and fiber, modest amount of alcohol, and regular exercise�all these behaviors help to lower your risk of ever developing cancer. More good news is that even though you can't prevent all cases of cancer, effective detection strategies exist for many of the common types of cancer. The goal here is to detect cases while in an early (or even pre-cancerous) stage when treatment can result in a long-term cure.

The first step in developing an individualized cancer screening program is to review your family history with your personal physician. For many types of cancer, the presence of cancer in a close family member (such as a sibling or parent) can be an important piece of information in determining your risk and implementing an individualized screening program.

The next step is to review such additional risk factors for cancer, as smoking, occupational exposure to certain chemicals, etc.

The last step is to include the cancer screening tests that are appropriate for all patients of the same age and sex categories.

These recommendations generally come from public and professional entities such as the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (probably the most rigorously developed standards) or the American Cancer Society. It is important to understand that there is frequently no clear consensus among the different entities.

Bottom line: Pursue a healthy, balanced lifestyle, and develop an individualized approach to cancer screening with your personal physician.