Need Help With a Colon Cancer Diagnosis? Text COLON to 484848

Oct. 20, 21 — “You have colorectal cancer.”

An estimated 150,000 folks hear these phrases or one thing like them within the U.S. annually.

Even earlier than the analysis, the affected person, after having the pleasures of bowel preparation and a colonoscopy, could get up nonetheless groggy from sedation and be instructed, “We’ve found something; I’ll call you in a few days when we get the pathology results.”

You don’t should be a psychiatrist to grasp that instances of nice emotional upheaval, stress, or uncertainty will not be supreme for decision-making, particularly when the one that is requested to resolve is dealing with a problem that will appear overwhelmingly complicated and horrifying.

Many sufferers’ first ideas are to go surfing for data, however that too might be overwhelming. For instance, a Google seek for the phrases “colorectal cancer” turns up roughly 134 million outcomes, in six-tenths of a second, no much less. Those outcomes can vary from the useful and vital, comparable to the web site Cancer.Gov from the U.S. National Cancer Institute, to the silly and downright harmful, comparable to a Facebook web page touting Aunt Tilly’s Miracle Mayonnaise Cure for Colon Cancer. (OK, so we made that final one up, however you get the concept.)

One of probably the most trusted on-line well being web sites is maintained by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It gives 11 suggestions for dealing with a most cancers analysis, the primary of which is, “Get the facts about your cancer diagnosis.” That suggestion is the inspiration for the Colorectal Cancer Provider Outreach Program (CRC POP).

Text COLON to 484848

“There are 13,000 gastroenterologists in the country, and we diagnose colorectal cancer 150,000 times a year,” says program creator Brian Dooreck, MD, of Memorial Healthcare System in Pembroke Pines, FL.

“What we created with the Colorectal Cancer Provider Outreach Program is that it now permits gastroenterologists to have a dialog with a affected person — I can say, ‘Now listen, take out your phone, and text the word COLON and send it to 484848,” he says.

Doing so returns a text in a few seconds with the words “You are not alone. You have our support. Here. Now,” and a blue heart emoji, followed by a link that takes the user to a web page with a document containing contact information for the American Cancer Society and other support organizations, including the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, Fight Colorectal Cancer, Colon Cancer Coalition, and Colon Cancer Foundation.

Free resources from the organizations include a helpline staffed 24 hours a day, peer support online or one-to-one support, financial assistance, access to colon cancer screening for under- and uninsured people in select areas, and links to a colorectal cancer patient registry and information.

“I can tell patients, ‘Hey listen, go home, call these groups, get on their websites. I’ll name you in per week, name me should you want me, we’re gonna determine this factor out collectively. This is a good place to get sources, right here and now. It’s a really totally different shift from going residence with out something apart from a therapy plan,” Dooreck says.

No Gain — Except Helping Patients

The text-based service is free.

“There’s no hook, there’s no cost, there’s no sale, it’s not monetized. There’s no gain except helping people,” Dooreck says.

Mark A. Lewis, MD, director of the gastrointestinal most cancers program at Intermountain Healthcare in Murray, UT, himself a survivor of a uncommon most cancers, says this system may help newly identified sufferers minimize by means of the fog that may observe a most cancers analysis.

“I think it’s a great initiative, and it helps unify some of the guidance we give these folks,” he says.

Lewis has the uncommon perspective of seeing the problem from each the oncologist’s and the affected person’s standpoint: Early in his coaching as a hematology-oncology fellow on the Mayo Clinic in 2009, he was identified with the uncommon syndrome a number of endocrine neoplasia sort 1, an inherited situation that causes tumors to develop in hormone-producing glands such because the thyroid or pancreas. He had surgical procedure to take away tumors within the pancreas.

He says the buy-in to CRC POP from main help organizations and from gastroenterologists alike is vital, as a result of most colonoscopies are finished and diagnoses of colorectal most cancers are made in neighborhood settings by docs who could or could not have formal connections with a most cancers heart, fairly than in giant city or suburban networks affiliated with medical faculties.

In most circumstances, he says, the gastroenterologist will make a most cancers analysis and hand the affected person off to a surgeon, who could join with an oncologist and/or radiation oncologist, relying on the affected person’s circumstance. This course of can take weeks, and within the meantime, sufferers are left in limbo.

Offering sufferers a number of reliable sources by means of a easy textual content message is a very interesting a part of the CRC POP initiative, and it will possibly assist sufferers really feel they’re extra in charge of their care, Lewis says.

Multidisciplinary Care

The connection to sources provided by this system are solely a part of the package deal of providers that sufferers obtain at giant tutorial medical facilities.

“Our approach to a newly diagnosed patient happens in the context of a multidisciplinary visit,” says Caroline Kuhlman, a nurse practitioner at Mass General Cancer Center in Boston.

Patients meet with a surgeon, oncologist, and generally radiation oncologist, she says. They are additionally given written data and might entry a affected person useful resource heart.

Patients will also be referred as wanted to different sources within the hospital system, together with nutritionists, social employees who may help them discover out extra about social and monetary help, and academic sources comparable to data periods on what to anticipate if they are going to be getting chemotherapy.

“We have homegrown support services that we make available to patients if they either ask for them or if we ascertain that those services would be important components of their care,” Kuhlman says.

Similarly, at Intermountain Healthcare, sufferers newly identified with most cancers are contacted inside 24 hours by affected person navigators who assist them handle considerations and expectations about their care and join them to sources each within the hospital and the neighborhood.

Although their practices differ in measurement and scope, Dooreck, Lewis, and Kuhlman all agree with the central message and goal of CRC POP: “You are not alone. You have our support.”