Colon Cancer Research Project

[eleffle1]

Hello everyone! I would like to preface this with the statement that I am doing this for a school project. I am currently in nursing school and I am performing my global capstone project on Colorectal Cancer. I am reaching out to any physicians, researchers, nurses, patients, or people in general from outside the United States who can help me understand and discuss factors surrounding Colorectal Cancer from an international perspective. It is a requirement of this project that I communicate about my chosen disease on a global level. If anyone from an international background would like to discuss factors surrounding screening, diet, exercise, accessibility, treatment and more that would be fantastic. If this is not the correct place to be posting this, I sincerely apologize. I look forward to learning from all of you.

[Rock_Robster]

Hi Eleffle, Australian here, diagnosed in Europe, happy to help. Good on you for choosing CRC as your research topic.

Cheers
Rob

[AlexandraZ]

From Denmark here! I'd be glad to help. (although it is my boyfriend who has the diagnosis. If you want to communicate directly with him that's ok too)

[_Jelen90]

From Canada here! We'd be happy to help

[Jacques]

... If anyone from an international background would like to discuss factors surrounding screening, diet, exercise, accessibility, treatment and more that would be fantastic....

Your capstone project sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I understand what your objective is. What is your goal, your focus? What problem would you like to solve?

Are you more interested in CRC prevention, or more interested in CRC treatment? Are you more interested in theoretical issues or in practical issues? Are you more interested in CRC from the standpoint of a physician or from the standpoint of a patient/caregiver?

As nurse, you could make a great contribution to the field if you focus your research on a relevant, useful topic. Here's an example of a book published by two Registered Nurses in Oakland, California:

Book - I would recommend reading the following book, which gives a general introduction to chemotherapy without focusing on any particular drug. The emphasis is on how to deal with the main side effects that are common to most all chemotherapy regimens, i.e., nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, neuropathy, etc. It is a good guide for someone who has had no prior experience with chemotherapy
"Chemotherapy Survivor Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Get through Treatment ", by J. McKay and T. Schacher, (2009)

[Siti]

I am Malaysian and my husband is French-Belgian. My husband was diagnosed in Netherlands, had his surgery in Singapore, and chemo currently in Netherlands. Happy to help.

[MetastaticEquilibria]

I’m a patient in Japan. Happy to help.

[eleffle1]

Thank you so much to everyone for the overwhelming response. I never expected this many people to comment back so needless to say I am taken back by the openness of this community. To specify my capstone project largely focuses on the effects of poor nutrition in acquiring CRC and the effectiveness of early screening for preventative measures. My capstone asks me to explore the disease through multiple lenses and this semester revolves around global health in relation to CRC and asks me too make communication with individuals outside of the country and attempt to understand the topic better from an international standpoint. That being said I'm mostly interested in the following, as well as anything else you wish to share that you may find relative to my project or discussion.
1. Your nutritional habits up to diagnosis and your personal feelings on it's significance to your current diagnosis
2. How nutritional habits of your country may effect the health of the public, are healthy foods accessible? is your country moving towards a more "westernized" diet of fast food and saturated fats? what is the public's general interpretation regarding nutrition and their health state (as you have perceived it)
3. What levels of screening are accessible to the public in your part of the world? Are colonoscopy's common place? are Fecal Occult Blood Tests used in its absence? Is the public aware of CDC screening guidelines and what type of systems are in place to help provide accessibility? Did your diagnosis come through recommended/routine screening or did symptoms send you for more help? Is anybody's diagnosis genetically linked to familial occurrences of CRC?
4.
Again I can't thank everyone enough for their participation and interest. I wish the absolute best too everyone experiencing treatment or working with a loved one through their own experience.

[Amarie123]

I’m happy to help as well.

[kaloy85]

From Philipines here, hope i can contribute to your research

[Jacques]

Thank you for providing clarification about you colorectal cancer capstone project.

I still have some questions, though...

1. What kind of final "product" is your capstone project designed to produce? - a research paper? a podcast ? a you-tube video? a press release along with an interview with the media? a multi-lingual web-site containing colon cancer awareness materials? a multi-lingual media kit for use during colon cancer awareness month abroad? etc.

2. What is the scope of your project? How many things are you trying to cover at the same time?

3. How are capstone projects like this evaluated? What are they looking for? What constitutes an excellent capstone project?

4. What is your project deadline? When do you have to deliver your final product?

5. How would you like for us to provide input, and in what format would you like to see the input?

Thank you.

[eleffle1]

Jacques,
Thank you so much for your continued interest in my capstone project. To put it simply the project is conducted over 4 semesters with each semester having its own individual assignment; at the end of my senior year the projects will be compiled together too total my finished capstone project. In the first semester we did a general paper on the disease, prevalence, significance and applicability to nursing as a whole. This paper also included a ten slide power point that was "public service announcement" themed in which I focused mainly on screening methods. In the second semester we conducted an in depth research paper on the disease for our pathophysiology class. I spoke on etiological factors of CRC as well as modifiable risk factors, largely modeled after the "westernized lifestyle and diet" essentially being food choice, alcohol and smoking consumption and exercise. I also wrote about the progression of the disease and the importance of early detection in early prevention. For the third semester (the current) we are supposed to conduct international communications in order to better understand global implications of the disease. There are no explicit guidelines for what needs to be covered or discussed, so frankly any type of input is positive. I simply framed those prompts in the previous posts based off of previous topics discussed in my project and have served as the previous scope of my research. I am too keep a log of my participation so any type of communication or discussion will be summarized into a separate log for review by my professor. They have emphasized that this portion of the capstone is highly experimental as it is not easy for everyone to connect internationally with others on their chosen topic. The project deadline for this portion of the project is approaching quickly as I may have procrastinated a little (lol) but any input will be utilized in this portion or in future portions of the project.

[Jacques]

... For the third semester (the current) we are supposed to conduct international communications in order to better understand global implications of the disease. There are no explicit guidelines for what needs to be covered or discussed, so frankly any type of input is positive...

OK, I think I understand now. Since your third semester is about to draw to a close now, I will give you a few things here to think about.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has a lot of information on country differences in the areas of colon and rectal cancer. You can look at some of their fact sheets to gain an appreciation or these differences:
  
  https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/10_8_9-Colorectum-fact-sheet.pdf
  
  https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/8-Colon-fact-sheet.pdf
  
  https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/9-Rectum-fact-sheet.pdf
  .
• The World Cancer Research Fund has a lot of information on diet and other modifiable risk factors underlying colorectal cancer worldwide:
  
  https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/colorectal-cancer
  .
• In some countries, colorectal cancer screening is not a big priority. Here's one example, but there are others:
  
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1015958416301774#bib1
  .
• In some countries they do not even have the machines or equipment to deal with colorectal cancer. For example, some countries don't have any CT scanners or any PET scanners. Here is a map for PET scanners.
  https://www.who.int/diagnostic_imaging/collaboration/petpermill_14.jpg

[MetastaticEquilibria]

Ok, let me take a stab at some answers:

1. Your nutritional habits up to diagnosis and your personal feelings on it's significance to your current diagnosis

Nutritional habits: mixed Western and Japanese diet, probably not the healthiest, but not the worst either. Probably drank a bit more than I should have.
Significance: No idea.

2. How nutritional habits of your country may effect the health of the public, are healthy foods accessible?

Yes.

is your country moving towards a more "westernized" diet of fast food and saturated fats?

Yes.

what is the public's general interpretation regarding nutrition and their health state (as you have perceived it)

Lots of talk about healthy eating on TV, which doesn’t translate into a lot of action in most people’s lives as far as I can see. Some people eat healthily, some don’t. Overweightness on the rise.

3. What levels of screening are accessible to the public in your part of the world? Are colonoscopy's common place? are Fecal Occult Blood Tests used in its absence?

Pretty good screening in some ways. Colonoscopies recommended over 50, fecal tests more common. But more mandatory screening could certainly be helpful. Too much reliance on voluntary screening now, in my opinion.

Is the public aware of CDC screening guidelines and what type of systems are in place to help provide accessibility?

Don’t know. Don’t think most people have heard of the CDC, but similar guidelines exist locally.

Did your diagnosis come through recommended/routine screening or did symptoms send you for more help?

Symptoms came first. I was one of those who were too busy/preoccupied with other things/didn’t take threat seriously enough to arrange more than the minimum mandatory screenings at work (which I also assumed were more thorough than it turned out they needed to be in my case).

Is anybody's diagnosis genetically linked to familial occurrences of CRC?

No.