Hood River’s Kiteboard 4 Cancer festival kicks off July 8. Project Koru’s mission in hosting this three-day event is to harness the power of the elements to benefit lives affected by cancer and help survivors rediscover life in the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Steve Fisher
This year, far too many Oregonians will receive an unwanted cancer diagnosis. According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 8,500 Oregonians will lose their lives to cancer. Given the extraordinary advances we’ve seen in cancer treatments, this death toll is as frustrating as it is tragic.
Two simple truths tell the story of the difficulty we face in the fight against cancer. One, cancer is highly treatable and survival rates are generally excellent if the disease is caught in its early stages. And two, we don’t have the screening capabilities to detect most cancers early. Today, there are common screenings for only five types of cancer — breast, cervical, colorectal, lung and prostate. For other cancers — such as stomach, liver, esophageal or ovarian, to name a few — a patient can remain asymptomatic until the disease has progressed and the odds of a successful treatment have declined precipitously. What’s more, seven of every 10 cancer deaths are from a type of the disease for which no approved screening exists.
Medical science is on the verge of providing a solution to this. It’s now up to public policymakers to ensure that it can be utilized to save lives and strike a blow against cancer.
Clinical studies have been taking place across the nation on a new type of cancer screening that can detect dozens of variations of cancer from just one draw of blood. Utilizing genomic science and machine learning, scientists have discerned that these blood tests can detect multiple cancers with high accuracy and guide where in the body the cancer is located. Adding these breakthrough innovations to our existing cancer screening infrastructure can result in significantly more cancers being discovered early and, thus, more lives being saved.
But the accessibility of these tests is far from ensured. Medicare does not necessarily allow coverage to new disease prevention services and technologies even if the Food and Drug Administration deems them safe and effective. Cancer screening technologies can, in fact, linger in the bureaucracy unused and inaccessible for years. This is unacceptable when we are still witnessing far too many cancer-related tragedies.
Fortunately, there is a bipartisan legislative solution in Congress, which is supported by members of the Oregon congressional delegation. The Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Act would create a pathway for Medicare to provide coverage for these transformative blood tests. It’s similar to what Congress has done in the past to enable coverage of mammograms and colonoscopies.
We know we can beat cancer. Our young fighters have proven that repeatedly. Now, with the promise of MCED, reducing cancer mortality is within reach.
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Steve Fisher is the board chair of Project Koru, a Hood River non-profit that empowers young adults with cancer to find healing and life renewal through outdoor adventures and community.
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