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Prevention and Chronic Disease Management

MPRO and MQIC urge prevention through breast, cervical and colon cancer screenings

MPRO and The Michigan Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) are raising awareness of early detection of breast, cervical and colon cancer by publishing a chart of cancer screening recommendations at www.mqic.org/pdf/MQIC_PREVENTION_MESSAGE.pdf.

The quality of health care for millions of Americans improved in most areas of care in 2005, the seventh consecutive year of such gains. MQIC recommends cancer screenings to improve mortality and reduce the cost of health care in these categories.

Breast cancer
Early detection through breast cancer screening has numerous advantages:

More than 70 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no identifiable risk factors, such as family history of breast cancer that might alert their doctor to potential breast cancer without a mammogram.
A mammogram can detect breast cancer one to three years before a woman can feel the lump.
Mammography can detect nearly 85 percent of breast cancers.

Cervical cancer
Cervical cancer is one of the most successfully treatable cancers when detected early.

Screening rose to 81.8 percent in 2005; the early treatment cure rate is nearly 100 percent.
The risk of developing invasive cervical cancer is three to 10 times greater in women who have not been screened.
Cervical cancer is a silent cancer. It rarely causes pain or noticeable symptoms until it is so advanced that it is unresponsive to treatment.

Colorectal cancer
Finally, colorectal cancer screening rates are lower than those for other common cancers.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among both men and women in the United States.
If detected early (stage one), 85 to 95 percent of patients with colorectal cancer can be cured.
An annual fecal occult blood test plus sigmoidoscopy every five years can reduce cancer-related mortality by 80 percent compared with no screening.

For more information about MQIC please visit, www.mqic.org.