Colon Cancer

TIOGA, Pa. - Joel Stephens grew up on a mountain where streams run clear, clouds graze the treetops and people walk deer trails instead of vice versa.Folks shouldn't get sick here, but Stephens did. Last November, colon cancer struck the 21-year-old Orioles farmhand, who came home to this hamlet in upstate Pennsylvania to beat the disease - or die trying. The latter, he says, is not an option."People signed me off at the beginning," said Stephens, who has lost almost 40 pounds."It's a tough cancer.

TORONTO -- The anniversary will pass tomorrow without celebration. Eric Davis, cancer survivor, is too busy savoring life.It was last June 13, as the Orioles opened a three-game interleague series in Atlanta, that Davis underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in which a fist-sized cancerous mass was removed from his colon. A sizable piece of healthy tissue also was sacrificed. His season appeared over. His life was uncertain.Today the surgical scar remains, but the sharp pain that once doubled him over inside the visitors' dugout at Jacobs Field has vanished.

The month of May has been designated as Women's Health Month to encourage women to take charge of their health. There is no better step that a woman over the age of 50 (or 45 for African-Americans) can take than to schedule a colonoscopy. Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths for women, but with early detection, it is 90 percent curable. And while mammograms and Pap tests are critical for the early detection of breast and cervical cancer, a colonoscopy can actually prevent colon cancer because colon cancer often starts as a benign polyp.

I've been wallowing in my first-of-the-season Eastern Shore cantaloupe. This basketball-sized beauty glowed golden as a summer sunrise, musky and fragrant as Mother Earth herself.The succulent orange flesh melted sweetly in my mouth. Who would believe that cancer prevention could taste this good!Cancer is high on the list of most-feared diseases, and the American Cancer Society tells us that one-third of all cancers are diet-related. Less than 10 percent of Americans eat daily two fruits and three vegetables as recommended by the National Cancer Institute for cancer prevention.

Diana Roosevelt Jaicks,71, a social crusader and a niece of Eleanor Roosevelt, died Saturday in San Francisco of colon cancer. Her father, G. Hall Roosevelt, was the brother of Eleanor Roosevelt.Anthony D. Liberatore Sr.,77, who was convicted in the slayings of two police officers and a rival gangster, died of a heart attack and dementia July 1 in Cleveland while serving a 10-year prison term for money laundering and racketeering.More obituaries next pagePub Date: 7/09/98

Eden Stotsky was just a freshman in college when she began having painful abdominal cramps, and doctors were at a loss to explain them. Lactose intolerance, a pulled muscle, irritable bowel syndrome, even the way she drank water through a straw -- all were cited as possible causes for the recurring pains. But it wasn't until a few years later, when Stotsky collapsed after climbing four flights of stairs, that she knew something was "seriously wrong." Stotsky, then 26, got a colonoscopy in which doctors discovered an orange-sized, malignant tumor.

Two research teams have developed written tests - free and available on the Web - to help doctors predict your risk of developing genetically inherited colon cancer. One group, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says it has validated its screening technique by testing it on 279 colon cancer patients. Another team, from Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, compiled its screening questionnaire after a five-year study of clinical and genetic data from nearly 2,000 patients with personal or family histories involving the disease.

Nancy Jean Petrarca, a medical technician and real estate saleswoman, died of colon cancer Saturday at her Cockeysville home. She was 50. Born in Baltimore and raised in Glen Burnie, she was a 1973 Glen Burnie High School graduate and cheerleading captain. She then completed three years of course work toward a science degree at Towson University. She was a medical technician at the old South Baltimore General and Maryland General hospitals and Central Laboratories in Timonium. She was later a medical labs marketing representative.

WASHINGTON -- The colon cancer that White House press secretary Tony Snow was treated for in 2005 has spread to his liver, his principal deputy, Dana Perino, said yesterday. Snow, who underwent abdominal surgery Monday, will begin chemotherapy treatments, Perino said. Perino, pausing to regain her composure, told reporters that Snow said he was "going to be going after it as aggressively as he can." President Bush, speaking with reporters in the White House Rose Garden, said, "It's a recurrence of the cancer that he thought that he had successfully dealt with in the past.

THE DISCOVERY by Johns Hopkins researchers of a genetic mutation that doubles the risk of colorectal cancer illustrates the serendipity of science. At its best, scientific research meets exacting standards while remaining open to unanticipated discoveries, and to the seemingly unimportant clues that when examined more closely lead to dramatic breakthroughs.When Dr. Bert Vogelstein agreed to test a cancer patient who visited his Hopkins lab for genetic mutation that causes colon cancer, he never expected the favor to lead to a landmark discovery.