VA ECHCS Highlights Cancer Preventive Measures during National Cancer Prevention Month

February is National Cancer Prevention Month. It is a time to raise awareness about cancer, its effects and the prevention and early detection programs available to Veterans. 

VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System is leading the charge in its own cancer prevention and detection for Veterans through various cancer prevention initiatives and programs. 

According to the American Association for Cancer Research, more than 2 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2025, and more than 600,000 died from their cancer. One out of five Veterans are affected by some type of cancer in their lifetime. Two generations of Veterans are seemingly affected the most by cancer: Vietnam and Post 9/11-era veterans. This can be attributed to Agent Orange exposure during Vietnam and burn pits during the War on Terror. 

Service exposures raise cancer risk for many Veterans 

“Agent Orange, does increase the risk of prostate cancer,” said Dr. Swati Patel, VA Eastern Colorado gastroenterologist. “It's been linked with lung cancer with different types of kind of blood cancers like Hodgkin's disease or lymphoma, multiple myeloma, leukemia. And so, I think, we're learning more and more and in large part that's been because VA has been very proactive about understanding the risks associated with Agent Orange.” 

As part of that proactive approach, VA has created a database to help better track Veterans affected by anything cancer-related regarding Agent Orange. 

“There's a nationwide Agent Orange registry that invites Veterans to participate, so that we can understand the long-term impacts of Agent Orange,” said Patel. She also said that exposure to Agent Orange could also be a significant risk factor for veterans in developing certain types of cancer, which led to the creation of the registry.   

Along with the proactive approach of finding and cataloging Veterans who have different types of cancers, another way VA Eastern Colorado targets cancer prevention is through recognizing family history. 

Tracking exposures and family history  

“We know that, separate from all the Veteran-specific risk factors, having a family history of colon cancer is a strong risk factor for colon cancer,” said Patel. “And so, sharing family history with your doctor is important because that might qualify individuals to get screened earlier, or maybe do screening more frequently.” 

Early screening is important in not only identifying cancers when symptoms may be present or family history suggests a possibility of cancer, but it also helps in significantly reducing cancer deaths when found earlier enough, according to American Association for Cancer Research. Of the 618,000 cancer-related deaths reported in 2025, 40% were linked to preventable risk factors such as tobacco use, infectious agents, alcohol consumption and excess body fat. 

Along with Agent Orange and burn pit exposure, other chemicals and hazardous materials Veterans could have been exposed to includes asbestos, radiation and lab-made chemicals, such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) which are part of a large group of lab-made chemicals known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) according to the American Cancer Society. 

“It's a unique patient population with unique exposures and they are at risk of different cancers potentially than the general population,” said Patel. “And so raising awareness around that specifically for our veterans, of course, it's important for our veterans to understand that they might be at higher risk of certain cancers based on the exposures they've had. It is an important message to get out there, because then they can start thinking about their service-related exposure and share them with their doctor.” 

Offering options for colon cancer screening 

VA Eastern Colorado has a number of programs to help with early cancer prevention for Veterans facing those risks, including colon cancer screening.  

“So, I'm a gastroenterologist by training and I focus on colon cancer prevention, and we offer kind of the whole spectrum of invasive and noninvasive colon cancer screening options to our patients,” said Patel. “And with colonoscopy, we can visualize the entire colon, remove any pre-cancer polyps and prevent cancer altogether. And that's available to all veterans.” 

Lung cancer screening team works across services 

Another area where VA Eastern Colorado excels in cancer prevention and screening involves the lungs. 

“Our pulmonary department leads the lung cancer screening program, which is a very successful screening program at our VA that involves coordination with our radiology department, which does all the CT scans, but then also all the follow-up and navigation of Veterans, so they know if they have any abnormalities on their CT scans, so they know,” said Patel. 

Distance and outside care add challenges 

With these preventive and screening measures, there are still challenges that affect Veterans seeking to detect cancer early.  

“One of the challenges is always access,” said Patel. “Depending on where a Veteran lives, or how close they live to a VA facility, it can limit their kind of touch points or access with the VA system. And so, certainly within GI, we do our very best to reach as many Veterans as possible.” 

With February and National Cancer Prevention Month ending, it’s important for Veterans, their caretakers and families to know that cancer prevention is not just one month. Veterans must be constantly vigilant for changes in themselves and loved ones. It’s also about raising awareness, making efforts to helps Veterans and empower them with the knowledge and tools they will need to reduce their cancer risk and how to talk to their health care providers about those risks and prevention so they can live to fight another day.