"Don't put it off" Colorado father urges screenings after routine colonoscopy finds cancer
When Castle Pines father of two Jeff Lind turned 45, his doctor told him it was time for his first colonoscopy.
"I did not want to do it because I've heard that it's, it's quite invasive," Lind said.
After putting off the screening procedure twice, Lind ultimately scheduled it for January of this year.
"It's the right thing to do for my health. I mean, if I'm by myself and don't have anybody who relies on me, then maybe that's a different story. But I have a family. I want to see them and see my kids grow," Lind said.
Despite the fact that Lind had no noticeable symptoms, doctors at AdventHealth found cancer in his colon.
"They found 10 polyps and a tumor, and it didn't look good," Lind said. "It's super scary. I didn't know what was going to happen. Am I going to make it through this? Am I going to see my kids grow up?"
A few weeks later, colorectal surgeon at AdventHealth in Castle Rock and Parker Dr. Ryan Smith operated on Lind, removing 10 inches of his colon.
"Jeff is a classic example of reason to get screened at age 45. He really didn't have any symptoms. He was going for a routine colonoscopy at the recommended age and found a mass in the distal part of his colon and first part of his rectum," said Smith.
Smith said colorectal cancer is on the rise in young people.
"We are seeing an increased incidence in colorectal cancer in patients under the age of 50. It's actually the leading cause of cancer-related death in men under 50, and it's the second leading cause of death in women under 50," Smith said.
It is recommended that adults should start getting a colonoscopy at age 45 and repeat every 10 years if no polyps are found. If you have symptoms or a family history, talk to your doctor about getting one sooner.
"If you do have a family history, it is an indication to get screened earlier. The recommendation is 10 years earlier to the onset of a family member, and then anytime you have symptoms, that is also an indication to get screened," said Smith. "Symptoms such as bleeding, weight loss changes in bowel habits; those are all indications to get evaluated. Oftentimes, things like that can get written off in the younger population. So it's really important to be your own advocate and when you know something is not right, to have it evaluated."
Lind said the procedure was not bad, but the preparation was terrible. Dr. Smith said the process is easy, safe and not worth putting off.
"I certainly think there can be a stigma. I don't think anybody enjoys the prep and everything that's required for a colonoscopy. And it's also easy to be one of those things that you keep putting off because of just life happening and inconvenience in everybody's busy schedule. But it should not be anything anybody is embarrassed about. It is something we recommend for everybody," Smith said.
Thanks to early detection, Lind is now cancer-free.
"It wouldn't have been identified if I hadn't gone when I turned 45, getting a colonoscopy. I could be in a much different place, you know. Say I didn't go for five years, who knows what, what would have happened?" Lind said.
He'll have to get a colonoscopy once a year but says it's a small price to pay for a future with his family.
"Don't put it off. Just go get it done," Lind said.
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16 hours ago
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Tight blood pressure control called healthy, cost-effective
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Business Wire
12-08-2025
- Business Wire
Stoke Therapeutics Reports Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Provides Business Updates
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The increase in operating expenses for the three and six month periods ending June 30, 2025 over the same periods in 2024 primarily relate to increases in costs associated with an increase in personnel and launch readiness expense. Stoke Webcast and Conference Call for Analysts and Investors Stoke management will host a webcast and conference call for analysts and investors on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, at 4:30pm Eastern Time. The webcast will be available on the Investors & News section of Stoke's website at Research analysts who plan to join the call and participate in the Q&A session may register here to receive the dial-in details and a unique PIN. All other participants are invited to access the listen-only webcast by clicking here. A replay of the webcast will be archived and available for at least 90 days following the event. 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Stoke's first medicine in development, zorevunersen, has demonstrated the potential for disease modification in patients with Dravet syndrome and is currently being evaluated in a Phase 3 study. Stoke's initial focus are diseases of the central nervous system and the eye that are caused by a loss of ~50% of normal protein levels (haploinsufficiency). Proof of concept has been demonstrated in other organs, tissues, and systems, supporting broad potential for Stoke's proprietary approach. Stoke is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts. For more information, visit Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the 'safe harbor' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to: the Company's quarterly results and cash runway; its future operating results and current or future financial position and liquidity; the ability of zorevunersen to treat the underlying causes of Dravet syndrome and reduce seizures or show improvements in behavior and cognition at the indicated dosing levels or at all; the design, timing and results of clinical studies, data readouts, regulatory decisions and other presentations for zorevunersen and STK-002; the ability of STK-002 to treat the underlying causes of Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy (ADOA) and maintain or improve vision; our expectations, plans, aspirations and goals, including those related to the potential of zorevunersen and our collaborations with Biogen and Acadia. Statements including words such as 'anticipate,' 'expect,' 'plan,' 'will,' or 'may' and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions, which, if they prove incorrect or do not fully materialize, could cause the Company's results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to: the Company's ability to advance, obtain regulatory approval and ultimately commercialize its product candidates; that if Biogen were to breach or terminate the collaboration, the Company would not obtain the anticipated financial or other benefits; the possibility that the Company and Biogen may not be successful in their development of zorevunersen and that, even if successful, they may be unable to successfully commercialize zorevunersen; positive results in a clinical trial may not be replicated in subsequent trials or successes in early stage clinical trials may not be predictive of results in later stage trials; the Company's ability to protect its intellectual property; the Company's ability to fund development activities and achieve development goals through mid-2028; and the other risks and uncertainties described under the heading 'Risk Factors' in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and the other documents it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. Reference: Based on Stoke Therapeutics' preliminary estimates, which scaled annual incidence to prevalence using country-specific live birth rates over the past 85 years and adjusted for Dravet-specific mortality. The estimate is based on incidence rates published by . 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Engadget
11-08-2025
- Engadget
AI summaries can downplay medical issues for female patients, UK research finds
The latest example of bias permeating artificial intelligence comes from the medical field. A new study surveyed real case notes from 617 adult social care workers in the UK and found that when large language models summarized the notes, they were more likely to omit language such as "disabled," "unable" or "complex" when the patient was tagged as female, which could lead to women receiving insufficient or inaccurate medical care. Research led by the London School of Economics and Political Science ran the same case notes through two LLMs — Meta's Llama 3 and Google's Gemma — and swapped the patient's gender, and the AI tools often provided two very different patient snapshots. While Llama 3 showed no gender-based differences across the surveyed metrics, Gemma had significant examples of this bias. Google's AI summaries produced disparities as drastic as "Mr Smith is an 84-year-old man who lives alone and has a complex medical history, no care package and poor mobility" for a male patient, while the same case notes with credited to a female patient provided: "Mrs Smith is an 84-year-old living alone. Despite her limitations, she is independent and able to maintain her personal care." Recent research has uncovered biases against women in the medical sector, both in clinical research and in patient diagnosis . The stats also trend worse for racial and ethnic minorities and for the LGBTQ community . It's the latest stark reminder that LLMs are only as good as the information they are trained on and the people deciding how they are trained . The particularly concerning takeaway from this research was that UK authorities have been using LLMs in care practices, but without always detailing which models are being introduced or in what capacity. "We know these models are being used very widely and what's concerning is that we found very meaningful differences between measures of bias in different models,' lead author Dr. Sam Rickman said, noting that the Google model was particularly likely to dismiss mental and physical health issues for women. "Because the amount of care you get is determined on the basis of perceived need, this could result in women receiving less care if biased models are used in practice. But we don't actually know which models are being used at the moment."
