Chemoprevention of colon cancer

Colorectal cancer remains the second most common cause of cancer-related mortality in North America. Prevention of the disease is an inherently more attractive approach to dealing with the problem than treatment of existing disease for both medical and fiscal reasons. Chemoprevention is a promising tool for colorectal cancer prevention and should assume an increasingly prominent role since decades of advances in surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy have produced only minor declines in mortality from this cancer. The evaluation of natural and synthetic agents that can attenuate the risk of colon cancer should lead to new strategies for colon cancer chemoprevention. This review summarizes the most recent advances in chemoprevention studies including laboratory, epidemiologic, and clinical research, and includes some discussion of the presumptive mechanism(s) by which each prospective chemopreventive agent produces its protective effects.