Hometown med student raising awareness for colorectal cancer testing

Clarkston-raised medical student Pierce Claassen is hoping to raise awareness for colorectal cancer screening in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley before he leaves the region to continue his medical education.

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Colorectal cancer is the third most common type of cancer in men and women, but is one of the most preventable types of cancer, according to the American College of Gastroenterology.

A fourth-year medical student at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, Claassen said he developed a passion for gastroenterology and hepatology during a summer study program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, between his sophomore and junior years.

“I worked on a couple of different translational medicine projects, where we were looking at different gastrointestinal conditions in the laboratory setting and relating them back to human subjects,” he said. “That was really an area that was quite intriguing to me.”

After graduation in May, Claassen will continue his medical education at an internal medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona.

“That has always been my goal and my passion since I was introduced to that field in 2018,” Claassen said.

Recently, Claassen presented data on colorectal cancer cases specific to Asotin County. 

The county’s age-adjusted five-year colorectal cancer incidence per 100,000 is lower than the Washington average, Claassen said, with the incidence rate consistently decreasing between 2010 and 2020.

“We’re actually doing a fairly good job with employing screening modalities early and often,” Claassen said. 

However, the county has seen an increase in the five-year colon, rectal, and anal cancer mortality rates.

The most likely explanation for that, he said, is that more of those cancers are being detected at later stages and in people who are younger and not usually screened. 

“There are certain people, perhaps those with underlying genetic conditions, that have other unique risk factors to developing colorectal cancer,” Claassen said.

That information would fall in line with data published by the American Cancer Society showing that colorectal cancer rates are increasing among younger people.

In 2020, the American College of Gastroenterology reduced the recommended age to begin colorectal cancer screenings to age 45 for people at an average risk.

Several different types of screening methods exist, Claassen said, including flexible sigmoidoscopy, imaging tests and stool-based tests. However, the gold standard is a colonoscopy.

“It’s a very effective procedure in the sense that you can both diagnose and treat early stages of cancer and prevent cancers from occurring before they even have the chance to develop over the course of years or decades,” Claassen said.

People should also be aware of potential symptoms of colorectal cancer, Claassen said. They can include unusual abdominal pain, changes in stool caliber (how thick or thin the stool is), and changes in stool habits, such as a person waking up in the middle of the night for a bowel movement.

Having bright red blood in the stool, or black, tarry stools, also may indicate the need to see a doctor for a colorectal cancer screening.

Patients also should identify their individual risks. People with close family members with colorectal cancer and those with underlying gastrointestinal conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease are at a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer, Claassen said. Those individuals may need to be tested earlier.