I was shocked to see an article that Tony Snow has died of colon cancer. There was a semi recent story on him and his J pouch surgery in the news and I had thought that his cancer was removed in surgery and chemo.

There aren't any details out there except that it was the result of colon cancer. If anyone has more info, please post it here.

My sympathies to his family....

Rick

Rick,

He had been recently cancelling various appearances and speaking engagements for health reasons. His cancer was removed and it came back. This sometimes happens. That's why it is sometimes not a good idea for a UC patient to wait until colon cancer is diagnosed to have a colectomy, as Snow did. Snow had UC for 25 years pre-colectomy.

I heard on the radio that Snow's mother died from colon cancer at age 38. It's very sad and unfortunate that both he and his mother passed away at such young ages as a result of colon cancer. One can speculate that their deaths were avoidable if they had been having annual colonoscopies, although I do not know for fact that Snow did not have annual colonoscopies, or the % chance of getting colon cancer if one is getting annual colonoscopies and no dysplasia has been been identified. I have heard speculation that Snow did not stay on top of his own medical treatment.

I have a friend who has had UC for 30 years and he is the same age as Snow was when he was first diagnosed with colon cancer, so I will be talking to him about this later on when I see him this afternoon.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DJBHusky,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Snow

Apparently Snow's cancer had spread to his liver (among other places) and that is probably what ultimately killed him.

RIP Tony

Very sad. On the TV appearances I have seen him on, he seemed like a really great guy. It kind of feels like we lost one of our own.

My sympathies to his family and friends.

I have been following Tony Snow's story and actually wrote to him.
He waited too long. When he resigned I knew it wasn't good.
I hope he had some time with his young children and that his family can find some peace in this sad time.
This is why surgery is the only option after a long bout with UC.

That's sad that he died so young. I don't think that anyone can state that he would have lived if he had been more proactive. We have no idea how aggressive his cancer was. Perhaps he did everything he could have done and it still didn't prevent his cancer from spreading.

I have a friend who had a mastectomy for her breast cancer. She was having very aggressive screenings every 3 months. Every 3 months. They found cancer in her other breast and it was very advanced. In 3 months.

I think people should get all the information they can and make an informed decision regarding their health. It saddens me when Tony Snow's death could be used to frighten people into making a decision that they might not make. It can lead to dissatisfaction with whatever the outcome is from their surgery.

We can't make decisions for people. My mother never goes to the doctor. She's never had a pap smear or a mammogram. She is 86 years old, works fulltime in retail(!!!), and still drives herself everywhere and is an excellent driver. We used to nag her all the time about going to the doctor. She finally said: "it's my life and I'll make the decisions about how I live it." She was and is absolutely correct. We all stopped the nagging and she's still doing just fine. I'm pretty sure my mother has all the information she needs and she knows the consequences.

We should be here to tell people our stories but I don't think we should be employing fear tactics.

This is my opinion only.

kathy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kathy smith,

It seems like as good a time as any to restate one of the things that drove me towards having surgery, which is this:

No studies have shown a statistical difference in the colon cancer death rate between UC patients who have regular colonoscopies and those who don't. So as not to be alarmist, I'll point out that those rates are pretty low in both cases (though higher than in the population at large). As long as it's true it means that relying on colonoscopy for improving that particular outcome is a mistake.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charlotte Gilman,

Charlotte,

If that is correct what is the point in having regular colonoscopies?

Kathy,

Who in this thread is "employing fear tactics"? I have no idea what you are talking about.

Here is the most widely-cited study that's been done on this:

http://www.eurjcancerprev.com/pt/re/ejcp/abstract.00003...091!-1?nav=reference

As studies of medical intervention go, it's pretty weak. They didn't randomize people to groups and see what happened: they took a big group of UC patients who'd died from colon cancer and then went back to see how many scopes they'd had. And even this one only generated the conclusion that colonoscopy "may" be associated with decreased death risk.

So: although it seems intuitive that surveillance scopes will reduce death risk, it's not fair to attribute the general risk of death or any particular person's death to that person's failure to get them done. No one has ever actually demonstrated conclusively that they work. It seems counterintuitive that they wouldn't, but there's a lot of weird counterintuitive data in UC/cancer research (including one recent Japanese paper that found cancer risk decreasing rather than increasing with years from diagnosis). The bottom line is that the "state of the art" on this is not research-tested.

Even if surveillance colonoscopy doesn't succeed in preventing deaths, it might still be useful for minimizing non-fatal cancers and the morbidity (sometimes mortality) that come with treating them. It might be that scoped and non-scoped UC patients have equal death rates because the cancers that develop to become fatal are harder to find, or grow faster, or for some other reasons. But no one really knows.

And all of this may change when someone finally does a nice big randomized controlled study on it, or as scope technology gets better (I'm finding the chromoendoscopy stuff using dye to identify problem areas in normal-looking colon especially interesting). But for now, it put a big rock on the side of the scale that read "surgery" in my case (pancolitis for ten years, with LGD and one area of HGD that no one could re-find).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charlotte Gilman,

Charlotte,

In my case LGD was enough to "put the big rock on the side of the scale that said surgery." I had always been under the impression that these screening colonoscopies on UC patients are looking for LGD/HGD, polyps and other possible indicators of cancer, as well as to create a record which tracks the progression (or lack thereof) of the illness as it potentially begins to involve more areas of the colon. My 20 year history saw UC slowly spread from the lower part to the entire colon by the time I had the colectomy.

I don't doubt the results of that study, but if those results were widely accepted as scientifically reliable, I would think that the insurance companies would begin challenging the medical necessity of colonoscopies and stop paying for them. As you say, it seems counterintuitive. But, I note the conclusion of the study: "Conclusion: Colonoscopic surveillance may be associated with a decreased risk of death from colorectal cancer in patients with long standing UC."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DJBHusky,

I saw on the news this morning and feel really bad. He came from humble beginnings and became a very successful leader, despite having UC. Great role model for us IBD'ers!

I had UC for 15 years and then after an annual colonoscopy at the age of 26, it showed low and high grade dysplasia. The final pathology of the colon after surgery showed the very earliest stage of cancer. I am very fortunate to have caught this in the very earliest of stages. I am also lucky that I had a GI who did very thorough colonoscopies annually, even though I was in remission and a young age. Not sure where I am going with this post, but just wanted to share how my story is a bit similar to Tony Snow.

So young, too young! His death and connection to UC made me want to look more into "the risks" of UC and cancer, and I wanted to know more so I did a post on the blog with some helpful cancer risk related info: http://ucstory.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/tony-snow-dead-at-53-yrs/

I found this easy to read CCFA brochure, here is an excerpt from Brochure page 2:

“Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), are chronic diseases that inflame the digestive or gastrointestinal (GI) system. Specifically, ulcerative colitis inflames and causes sores in the colon, while Crohn’s disease can inflame any part of the GI tract, including (in some cases) the colon. If you have had inflammation of the colon, you are at a higher risk for developing CRC than the general population (unless your inflammation is limited to the very bottom of the rectum). If your Crohn’s is limited to the small intestine, you are at a slightly increased risk for cancer in the areas that were inflamed. Even if your disease is in remission, you remain at risk. The two factors that are associated with increased cancer risk are disease duration and the extent of the colon involved. The risk for CRC doesn’t start increasing until eight to 10 years after you develop Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. People whose entire colon is involved have the greatest risk, and those with inflammation of the rectum only have the least risk. Finally, a rare complication of IBD is a chronic liver disease known as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), which causes bile duct inflammation. If you have either PSC or a family history of CRC, you may have a higher risk of developing CRC before the eight to ten year period. It is important that you speak to your physician about when your screenings should begin.”

If you are curious, here are some informative links to videos on the UC/Cancer connect. Keep in mind that it is still quite rare and us IBD'ers are more likely to catch it earlier than the general population as we get many more colonoscopies.

3 Videos

1) http://www.healthology.org/hybrid-player/hybrid-autodet...ncer&spg=ARTI&bhcp=1

2)
http://www.healthology.org/hybrid-player/hybrid-autodet...gi_ibdchemo&spg=ARTI

3) http://www.healthology.org/hybrid-player/hybrid-autodet..._ibdpatient&spg=ARTI

Brochure:

http://www.ccfaprofessionals.org/site/lookup.asp?c=fqKLLSOvElH&b=1552181

wow, i had no idea that he had suffered from colitis for so long.

does anyone know if he had had an ileostomy or a jpouch?

very inspirational that he was so successful in life despite suffering from this disease.

amazingly, we can still get "pouch cancer" even after getting colectomies and jpouch construction. within 7 years of the jpouch, the cleveland clinic foundation patients had 9 cases of pouch cancer among a total of 2500 patients. low numbers, i know, but they shocked me b/c i didn't know "pouch cancer' existed. (cited by dr. bo shen to me yesterday).
-michelle