The survivor of a 'silent disease' said to be on the rise amongst men has opened up on one of the earliest warning signs he observed in an attempt to raise awareness.
Dana T was diagnosed with anal cancer back in summer 2020, after noticing something wasn't quite right in his downstairs regions whilst taking a shower. A 'rough patch' he discovered in his anal canal spurred him to book in with his primary care doctor.
"He immediately referred me to a surgeon to get a biopsy," he recalled. "I had been followed for many years due to anal condyloma so he knew I was at risk."
By the time August rolled around, he'd been dealt a life-changing health blow.
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"It was stage 3C anal cancer," Dana revealed. "I was fairly quickly seen by a medical oncologist who looked over all the data and put me on the Nigro Protocol. The biopsy was difficult and the pain from that never went away as I started the chemo and radiation."
The treatment consists of both radiation therapy and 5-FU and mitomycin-C, and is the standard first step of care for people living with anal cancer.
It is understood that both anal and colon cancers are on the rise in men around the world, with a recent study conducted by the Digestive Disease Week discovering that cases of the former have increased by 1.6 per cent for men in the years between 2017 and 2021.
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Lead author Dr Ashley Robinson at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital told press recently: "Rates of anal cancer are rising fastest among white and Hispanic women over 65 - groups not traditionally considered high risk.
"While the exact reasons behind this trend remain unclear, most older women were beyond the recommended age for human papillomavirus vaccination when it first became widely available."
As per the American Cancer Society, whilst the risk of developing anal cancer is believed to be around 1 in 500, with 2,000 deaths caused by the disease being predicted per year.
According to the majority of medics specialising in anal cancer, early detection is key - and Dana couldn't agree more.
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Recalling his treatment, he claimed it was far from easy.
"I was hospitalised a few times for infection (again, probably the biopsy), fainting, and fluid buildup in my lungs," he told the Anal Cancer Foundation. "I finished treatment just before Halloween 2020. I had lost over 10 pounds at that point, and I was very weak.
"I continued to endure the pain for months and by January 2021 I had lost more weight, a total of 25 pounds. I just remember going to bed at night hoping I wouldn't wake up the next day."
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Dana added that the worst thing to do at the time was to Google his condition, however.
"Early on I found the ACF website and listened to a webinar and it was quite terrifying," he continued. "Stories of pain and anal dilators and sexual dysfunction. It was too much to even consider and I assumed it was patients with the worst outcomes and that was the end of my online research."
Thankfully, however, he had his family on his side - including his partner and brother, as well as a caregiver he'd hired - and eventually, he began to recover, gaining a large proportion of the weight he'd lost.
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"In February I was beginning to recover and started to regain the lost weight," he continued. "Slowly over the course of 2021, I got better and was back to my starting weight in January 2022.
"But there were good things in 2021, too. I proposed to my partner in April and we were married in November.
"Amazing luck that I found such a good man who put up with the treatment and my suffering and then agreed to marry me despite the continuing health problems."
Discussing the causes of this strain of cancer, Dr Evan Goldstein - a US anal surgeon and proctologist - recently explained that anal cancers stem from HPV, with around 90 per cent of cases being linked to this.
“Many think they are just skin tags and then find out it’s anal warts from HPV,” said Goldstein. “They can be painful and itchy and lead to bleeding.”
Rhianna Benson