A First

It has been just over three years since a small, but dedicated, group of individuals met in a conference room at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland to start what we hoped would be a movement to advocate for changes that would fight Esophageal Cancer.  We knew awareness about the link between Heartburn and Cancer would be key to our success.  We knew so many more people needed to be screened – to be checked – for EC or its precursor, Barrett’s Esophagus.  We knew that many more resources needed to be available to researchers who are working to effectively fight this disease once it’s diagnosed.  We knew we were committed to making the change happen.  We just didn’t know exactly how we would do it.

In the three years since ECAN, the Esophageal Cancer Action Network, was founded, we have figured out some ways to do what we set out to do.  And we’ve been successful at many of the efforts we have tried.  But what we know now and knew then is that it will take so much more than we can do in three years – or five years – or maybe even 20 years – to accomplish what we set out to do.  But we do believe we can make it happen in our lifetime.  We want to live to see the day that nobody has to die of Esophageal Cancer.

And so we are using all the tools we can to reach that goal.  This blog is one of those tools.  We inaugurate our “Check It Out” blog now in the hope that this tool will be effective to help us spread awareness and to help us grow our Network.  The more people are talking about the link between Heartburn and Cancer and the importance of early detection, of getting “checked,” the more likely we are to reach that day we are working toward.

We are proud of another tool we now have available.  ECAN has just released its Guide for Patients  – a comprehensive, but easy-to-understand explanation of Reflux Disease (GERD), Barrett’s Esophagus and Esophageal Cancer.  We created the guide with input from about 100 doctors from around the country and now more and more doctors are contacting us because they endorse our Guide for Patients.   They tell us that they believe it will help patients speak with their primary care doctors in a way that makes it more likely that they will be screened when screening is called for.  One doctor wrote to me to say that he was sure it would save lives.  That is our greatest hope.

So this is your chance – be a life saver! Share this blog – or at least the link to our Guide for Patients  – with those people you care about.  Let them know that the heartburn they feel may not be benign – that it could be deadly; that if ignored, the damage it's causing may not be detected until it is too late.  We can save lives.  Information is the best tool we have right now.  It's in your hands.  Please use it.


Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden