SAN ANTONIO — November is Cancer Awareness Month, and getting screened for cancer as you get older is a must.
One of the big reasons to get screened is because so many cancers are asymptomatic, which leads people to find out they have a disease a little too late.
Jody Hoyos, the CEO of the Prevent Cancer Foundation added, "We want to make sure that people are not waiting for signs or symptoms, that they're getting their routine cancer screenings, which give us the ability to detect the cancer early."
Some of the cancer symptoms you should not ignore include shortness of breath, bleeding, lumps or masses, difficulty swallowing or feeling full and changes in body functions. Dr. Dan DeArmond, an associate professor and chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UT Health San Antonio told us, "It became very clear many decades ago that we needed to be more proactive and actually try to find these cancers before they became symptomatic."
The American Cancer Society says in 2023 there were more than 609,000 cancer deaths in the United States. 45 percent of those are likely attributed to risk factors that are potentially modifiable, such as cigarette smoking, excess body weight, alcohol intake, physical inactivity and UV exposure.
So why aren't people getting screened?
"Seven in 10 adults in the US are behind on at least one routine cancer screening. And the number one reason they cited for being behind is they simply didn't know they needed to be screened," Hoyos said.
Dr. DeArmond added, "The whole point of screening is to try to catch it early where we have a lot more options. If we can catch a lung cancer and its stage one, we can do surgery on it for cure. If we can catch it at a stage two, we can do surgery for it with chemotherapy for cure."
For an appointment with UT Health San Antonio or to learn more about cancer screenings click here.