A Rutgers student group has assembled more than 1,600 home test kits to spread a message about the importance of early screening for colorectal cancer – the second-most common cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Volunteers with the Rutgers Health Service Corps have been meeting every week since last September to put together FIT (fecal immunochemical test) home stool test kits for patients of the Eric B. Chandler Health Center, a community clinic on George Street, which serves low-income New Brunswick residents. The project is designed to make it easy for people to get screened for colorectal cancer in the privacy of their own home.
“Colon cancer is one of the handful of cancers where there’s good data that screening saves lives,” says Ethan Halm, vice chancellor for population health at Rutgers Health. “You can pick up things in the early, silent phase before people have symptoms, when the cancer is more easily treatable with a high success rate.” To read the full story.