We all know the devastating effects of cancer. And now learning about our individual risk level for six types of cancer–and what we can do to reduce that risk level–is as simple as completing an online questionnaire.
My CancerIQ, a Cancer Care Ontario online cancer risk assessment tool, is marking its one-year anniversary and demonstrating its continued commitment to provide the public with strategies to improve their health and wellbeing. In the past year, the tool has provided 175,000 Canadians with critical information about their breast, cervical, colorectal and lung cancer risk and how to reduce it. With two significant additions, My CancerIQ will now also give the same potentially life-saving information for kidney cancer and melanoma. Just last year, an estimated 76,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in Ontario and approximately 28,500 people died from cancer. And when you consider that of these those diagnosed cases, 3,250 were melanoma and 2,450 were kidney cancer, the importance of the addition of these two types of cancer is clear.
By answering some questions online, My CancerIQ provides a custom assessment of your risk factors for a specific cancer (kidney cancer, melanoma and four other types of cancer). As well as an assessment of your risk, My Cancer IQ provides an action plan of lifestyle strategies designed to reduce your risk. For example, while many of us may wear sunscreen in the summer months, we may be lax about it in the winter. To lower your melanoma risk, My Cancer IQ provides a reminder that ultraviolet rays are present year-round and can be intensified in the winter when they reflect off ice, concrete and snow. Practicing sun-safe habits is crucial all year round.
Following a healthy lifestyle that eliminates known risk factors could cut the number of cancer diagnoses by as much as 50 percent in Ontario. Of the 76,000 new cancer-cases in Ontario in 2015, as many as 38,000 of those could have been avoided by being proactive and reducing individual cancer risks. If you can avoid cancer, wouldn’t you make that choice? To learn about your personal cancer risk and how you can lower it, visit My CancerIQ.
