I went for my first colonoscopy last week because my father had a villous adenoma at age 31, which he needed surgery to remove. So he told me to go now, as I am in that age range he anticipated. My father's mother died of colon cancer in her 50's with that same villous adenoma, as did my father's aunt, in her 70's, and my father's second cousin, at age 52; all had the same villous adenoma polyp in the same spot.
Last week I went with my two sisters, both of them were clear, I, on the other hand, had two polyps; one in my descending colon that was 10 mm, and another in my ascending colon which was 1.2 cm. The Doc removed both, said they look precancerous, but also said the stems they were on looked healthy, as did the surrounding tissue in my colon. Neither of these polyps were villous adenomas like my dad's side. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, because even though they were more tubulous like, I had two rather than 1; one of them looked more tubulovillous the Doc said. Maybe their similarity in size and structure suggests it was more environmental, and build up at the same time from my bad eating habits...
My father is a cardiologist and though he's never tested for Lynch, he insists that we don't have lynch syndrome, because the only cancer that ran in the family is colon cancer; there were hundreds of women in his family, none of them had ovarian or endometrial cancer (which is associated with Lynch). I should note my father's polyps never returned after the one he removed at 31.
However, I am freaking out, and DEATHLY afraid I have Lynch. I am more overweight than my sisters and have eaten pretty poorly over the last 28 years, but I am not obese or anything like that.
Is it really that uncommon for someone my age to have these polyps? Someone please comfort me...I don't want some crazy cancer in my 30's.