Prevent Colorectal Cancer: Will You Answer Yes?

Screen for Life Colorectal Cancer graphic

If you had the chance to stop something from causing you harm, would you? Yes, is the most likely answer. Here’s your chance to start with Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month! Screening can prevent colorectal cancer by finding precancerous polyps (abnormal growths) so they can be removed before turning into cancer. Polyps and colorectal cancer may not have symptoms at first, so routine screening is important. If you’re 45 or older and at average risk, it’s time to start regular screening.

CDC’s Screen for Life campaign has new materials to encourage you to put your health first and learn about colorectal cancer screening. Materials include videos, social media, and scripts for radio, streaming, and podcasts. Talk to your doctor about how to get safely screened.

Learn More

New Release: An Update on Cancer Deaths in the United States

Cancer deaths dropped 27% from 2001 to 2020; graphic with green arrow

A new report on cancer was released. An Update on Cancer Deaths in the United States uses the latest cancer death data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. In 2020, almost 603,000 people died of cancer in the United States, but cancer death rates have continued to drop. Cancer deaths have dropped 27% over 20 years from 2001 to 2020. In other findings:

Cancer remained the second leading cause of death, after heart disease in 2020. COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death.
Lung cancer was the leading cause of cancer death, with 23% of all cancer deaths.
Cancer death rates differed by cancer type, sex, racial and ethnic group, and residence in an urban or rural county.

Learn More

CDC’s Tips® Campaign Returns with New Ads

CDC’s Tips From Former Smokers® (Tips®) campaign has returned with new ads that encourage people who smoke to quit. Tips shares real stories about people from a variety of backgrounds, who live with serious long-term health effects due to smoking cigarettes or secondhand smoke exposure. The message they send is powerful: Now is the time to quit smoking, and free help is available. The campaign has proven its effectiveness over 10 years, helping more than 1 million U.S. adults to quit smoking and inspiring millions more to try to quit. Learn more about the Tips campaign, free quit-smoking services, and the new text-message based support to help people quit.

Learn More

Continuing Education Courses Highlight Best Practices for Colorectal Cancer Screening

Health care provider working on a laptop

CDC has partnered with Medscape Education to offer two continuing education courses on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening for primary care providers and other health care professionals. These courses are CRC Screening and Surveillance: Optimizing Quality and Screening for Colorectal Cancer: Recommended Best Practices. The goals of these courses are to increase CRC screening and to improve CRC screening quality. Find out more about these courses and how you can earn free continuing education credit.

Learn More

Research Spotlight

Cancer disparities among non-Hispanic urban American Indian and Alaska Native populations in the United States, 1999–2017 is the first study to examine cancer rates and trends among American Indian and Alaska Native populations in urban settings. Data in this study are from the U.S. Cancer Statistics registry dataset which includes corrected racial misclassifications. The study shows large differences in many cancers between non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native populations and non-Hispanic White populations living in the same urban areas.

Cervical cancer and precancers attributed to HPV types by race and ethnicity: implications for vaccination, screening, and management looks at human papillomavirus (HPV) in precancers and cancers to understand if protection provided by the HPV vaccine might vary among select racial and ethnic groups. The current HPV vaccine will prevent at least 84% of cervical precancers and at least 90% of invasive cancers among major racial and ethnic groups in the United States. HPV35, a type that is more common in Black women, is not targeted in the current HPV vaccines. Screening tests target all high-risk HPV types, including HPV35.

Did You Know?

People with certain conditions may need to be screened for colorectal cancer earlier than age 45. These include Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, a genetic syndrome such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) or Lynch syndrome (hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer), or a personal or family history of colorectal cancer or colorectal polyps.