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An Interview With Andrew Ellsworth, MD

Hailey Steffes

Updated: Feb 26, 2022

I interviewed Andrew Ellsworth, MD, who specializes in family medicine at Avera Medical Group in Brookings SD. Early in the interview Dr. Ellsworth emphasized that as a primary care doctor, preventative care is very important and that it is important “to try to help prevent problems rather than just always responding to things when it’s sometimes too late to do much about.” As a primary care doctor part of his responsibility is initiating cancer screening, like colorectal cancer screening. Below are a few questions I asked him along with some of his responses.


1. What can young adults do now to protect themselves from colorectal cancer?


“Knowing your family history would be the first thing I’d say.”


“Obviously, eating healthy and exercising. I know that sounds like what they always say, but it does decrease your risk of a lot of things. So, just being healthy in general is helpful and eating less processed foods. We do know from studies that eating less processed foods, especially processed meats, like deli meats or hot dogs, helps.”


“You know, not smoking. Smoking increases your risk, of course, of lung cancer and lung disease like COPD, chronic bronchitis, but smoking increases your risk of all cancers and all sorts of issues, because it just makes it harder for your body to recover from things and to deal with things in the body. And we really should probably add vaping and such in that. We just don't necessarily have the studies to say, yes, vaping increases your risk as it's just a little too new. But we certainly know of issues vaping causes.”


2. Why are we seeing more cases in young adults?


“It probably has to do with the increase of all those different carcinogens around us all the time. And our food, like I said, it kind of goes with processed food. And perhaps other chemicals and other things in the stuff that we’re eating and breathing that we don’t even know about, which is kind of scary. So, I don’t have an exact answer. And I hope they’re working on it.”


3. What makes someone at risk?


“Previous history of colon cancer or colon polyps. And or if they're having symptoms. So, if you have black or bloody stools, or change in bowel habits, or abdominal pain. These are reasons why sometimes I'll do a scope on a 21- to 30-year-old. Because then it increases the risk that there could be something going on and we want to take a look.”


4. Why do you think people are so reluctant to be screened for colorectal cancer?


“Because they've heard about the prep, having to poop a bunch, having a sore bottom, getting up a bunch at night to go to the bathroom. And so that can be unpleasant. And sometimes people even throw up the prep. And so that can be unpleasant, let alone the thought of having to be, you know, in the operating room, and being under.”


“One day of doing the prep is better than a year of chemotherapy. And usually, the prep is the worst part as far as the procedure itself.”


“There are risks, of course, with any procedure. So, there’s risk of the worst, perforation, if we were to poke through the bowel, causing a hole or tear and that could lead to surgery or infection or complications and risk of bleeding. Risk of discomfort afterwards, if nothing else, and bloating and gas. Then the risk of anesthesia, the risk of being put under for the procedure.”


5. What do you say to people who are reluctant to be screened for colorectal cancer?


“I have this conversation a lot and to be honest, I don't have too much pushback. They really feel like they have it done. You know whether from just knowledge or knowing other people that had colon cancer. Or knowing that's just something you do once you turn 50. I've had a lot of patients that it's a family member that really encouraged them and talk them into it.”


Ellsworth also mentioned that since he is the one that performs colonoscopies for his patients, there is already that established level of trust.


6. Are there different screening options?

Some screening options are colonoscopies, Cologuard, and other stool tests like fecal immunochemical tests.


7. What are some signs/symptoms to be aware of?


This was answered in question 3. Make sure to be monitoring your symptoms if you notice any black or bloody stools, or change in bowel habits, or abdominal pain.


8. What are the treatment options?


“During the procedure for colonoscopies, we can just snip it off, and they don't need to do anything else. Which is great, if it's just a polyp or something. If it comes back as a cancer, then we're going to need to do more imaging and perhaps a surgery to remove that part and then test the lymph nodes in the area. If some of those are positive, then they're seeing a cancer doctor, or radiation, or both. So, chemotherapy, where they're taking, a pill or an injection, or something to kind of help kill the cancer cells in their body or radiation where they're targeting an area and kind of zapping it, sometimes they'll do that first to kind of shrink a tumor before they have the surgery to remove it. So, surgery, perhaps radiation and chemotherapy.”

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