ATLANTA — Farrah Fawcett has become a symbol in the fight against anal cancer, a rare disease often linked to a sexually transmitted virus.
Before her death last week, at age 62, the actress had come to terms with the illness and agreed to have her suffering and treatment chronicled for a television documentary.
“She knew that she had the kind of anal cancer that she wasn’t going to ultimately overcome, and decided to leave as much of a legacy of awareness as she possibly could,” her physician, Dr. Lawrence Piro, said Tuesday before her funeral.
Breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer were all once unmentionable diagnoses that gradually became commonly discussed, thanks in part to celebrity disclosures from people such as former first lady Betty Ford, golfer Arnold Palmer and CBS news anchor Katie Couric, whose husband died of colon cancer.
In the wake of Fawcett’s illness, it’s likely that some patients will ask about her case and those topics will be discussed, said Dr. Barron Lerner, a Columbia University physician who wrote “When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine.”
