New York Oncology Hematology has cut the ribbon on an expanded cancer center in Troy.
The facility on Hoosick Street is doubled in size, now close to 8,000 square feet.
A new report from the American Cancer Society shows while cancer deaths are declining overall, there are some alarming trends, including an increase in cancer rates among younger people.
By way of disclosure, New York Oncology Hematology has been a WAMC underwriter.
To learn more about the expanded Troy Cancer Center and trends in cancer treatment, WAMC’s Lucas Willard spoke with medical oncologist Dr. Mohamad Younes.
The space was kind of limited and the current space, I mean, newer space is still in the same building, but it nearly doubled the size of their private space. So, the main goal of this really was to enhance and improve the patient treatment experience. So, there was more treatment capacity, there's more individual pods to enhance patient privacy. So, you know, patients when they're getting treatment, their infusion areas, there's more privacy. It improves, also, the patient flow. So that was one of the important issues that we needed, you know, to improve. There was a new education room for patients to talk about their chemo and their diagnosis, before they start therapy. There was a larger waiting room, bigger phlebotomy area. And there's also newer workstations for nurses and staff. So, all of this, links in general, like improving the patient's treatment experience. And that was one of the main goals, to double the space and to build this newer center in Troy.
Is the area seeing higher numbers or a greater incidence of cancers?
I believe we are. I think what we're seeing in the Capital District mirrors even the American Cancer Society statistic that just came out a few days ago. We are seeing more incidents of cancers, in general. So, I would say, yes. That's part of the reason for it. In general, we're seeing more cancer patients, which is also unfortunate, but then you need more space. You need more infrastructure to take care of these patients. So, I would say that, yes, part of that is due to that general increase in incidence in cancer over the years.
So, you refer to the American Cancer Society's 2024 report that was released just a few days ago. And the report shows that overall cancer mortality is declining, but also shows some alarming trend, and the first being rising incidences of colorectal cancer, which is now the leading cause of cancer death and younger men and second-leading cause of cancer death in women. Do you have any understanding as to why colorectal cancer is on the increase in younger people?
So, like you said, this is pretty alarming. We don't have an exact cause. But we think it's multifactorial, which means there's multiple factors to it. Probably it's a combination of genetic causes, environmental causes, and even lifestyle exposures and lifestyle changes in general. Now, we know that around 30% of these patients who are less than 50-years-old, especially in the U.S., they do have either family history of colon cancer, or they have what we call the hereditary cancer, colorectal cancer syndromes. So, we know there's 30%, that there might be some genetics going on. We also believe there's things related to diet. There's been some studies linking red or ultra-processed food and processed meats, to increasing the risk of colorectal cancers. One interesting thing, there's lots of emerging data right now linking what we call the gut microbiome, which is the bacteria gut, and how it's changing over time, which might be related to diet, and it's linking it to a causing more inflammation in the bowels, which can, by itself, cause more cancers. So, so there's lots of research being done to look into that. But we think it's multifactorial, between genetic and, and lifestyle and environmental changes.
The report also shows that, overall, cancer patients are getting younger, do you attribute that to the same factors that it could be environmental, it could be related to diet, and how do you feel about this trend of cancer patients actually getting younger?
It could be, it could be. I think, you know, what we're seeing now there's more studies in the colorectal cancer field, just because we're seeing more of these patients. But the general, the general increase in the incidence in younger patients, I would say, probably, is linked to these same factors. I don't think it's one factor, probably, again, those genetic and environmental, lifestyle, diet changes, especially the Western diet. I think all of these are probably playing factors and it's causing this.
How do doctors respond to these numbers in this American Cancer Society report? Is it possible to make predictions about the kind of care that will be needed in 5, 10 years?
So, there's two ways to approach this, as us at New York Oncology Hematology. One thing that you mentioned, which was a good trend, which was there's less in general, there's decrease in mortality from cancer in general. And this reflects, really mostly, sometimes early detection, smoking, like the less incidence of smoking in general, but also improved treatments. So, one thing is continuing to do more research. We have lots of clinical, we're involved in research at New York Oncology Hematology. So, number one, improving treatments, enrolling patients in trials, and finding better drugs to treat these patients. So, that's the first part. The second one is, which is the more important or as important, is really working on prevention. So, we need more research, we need more data to, for preventing these cancers. And, specifically, for what we're seeing now, with these younger patients, probably the most important would be earlier detection. So, we really, we need as oncologists, we need the primary physicians to find these patients that we think are at higher risk of developing cancer, so we can screen them earlier so we can detect the cancer earlier, so we can have better results, better chances of cure. So, one of the things that this report tells me is we should not ignore symptoms, just because the patient is young, If someone is 35, or 40, or 45, and they have bleeding in the rectum or if they have other symptoms, it should not be ignored just because they're young. These reports are telling us we really have to investigate the symptoms, we have to get the patients for earlier screening, so we can find these cancers earlier, and we can have better outcomes from treating it. And it's really more awareness from both physicians and patients not to ignore their own symptoms, too.
That's what I was going to touch on next. I think that this might point to some need for encouraging younger people to get their annual checkup and know that they're not invincible.
I agree. Again, you know, this is what this report… if we get something from this report is we have to be more vigilant for with younger patients with any kind of symptoms, we have to get them to screening. We have to be aware of their symptoms not to ignore it just because they're young. And hopefully that will at least for now help to curb you know that that rising mortality with from cancer and these younger patients
