You probably heard about Katie Couric, the American journalist that lost her husband to colon cancer. She started a campaign against the disease in order to raise the degree of informing regarding colon cancer and to make people all over the word realize the great danger this disease actually represents.

And if you have never heard about her and the drama she had to gone through with first her husband diagnosis with colon cancer and then his inevitable death, you probably have seen her in 2002 on TV having a colon cancer screening test.


Before continuing with Katie Couric colon cancer prevention and informing campaign, you have to know that colon cancer is a disease than can be fatal if the diagnosis is done very late and the cancer spreads to other parts of the body, making it untreatable.

This is why knowing colon cancer causes, risk factors and main symptoms is very important in order to be able to go to a doctor and discover the disease, before it is too late, as it was for Katie’s husband. Colon cancer diagnosis can be done through different screening procedures such as colonoscopy, barium enema or sigmoidoscopy. But, unfortunately people do not know many things about colon cancer and this disease prevention and diagnosis. And maybe through this fact can be explained the situation that shows that the most diagnosis of this type of cancer are done in one of the advanced stages, and so for many individuals the cancer can not be cured.


So, to be able to diagnose colon cancer as soon as formed, you must have the screening tests at the recommended time periods. In 2002 Katie Couric made colon cancer screening known to the world, by having a colonoscopy on television, with millions of people watching it.

And this courageous thing she did, did not remained without consequences. In the following years the number of colonoscopies performed grew with 20 percent and so the survival rates of colon cancer have improved. Screening tests are not something pleasant to do. In fact, many people avoid them because they are uncomfortable procedures, but Katie took her fear away and had a test live on TV. Just knowing all the things Katie Couric did for colon cancer prevention we must understand how difficult is this disease to deal with and how important is to discover it in time.


Katie Couric’s husband died at the age of 42 because of colon cancer, and he was diagnosed in an advanced stage of the disease because he had no symptoms and so no screening tests were performed by him because he did not know about the cancer. Maybe if the cancer had been diagnosed sooner, he would still have been alive.