What Is Colon Cancer?
In colon cancer grow malignant growths in the colon. Colon cancer is quite common. Usually these are people aged 60 and older; occasionally the case of younger people.
Most of the tumors arise in the last sections of the colon, the rectum and the portion therefor, the sigmoid or S-shaped intestine. Tumors in the first part of the large intestine are somewhat rarer.
The tumors arise from polyps. These are benign growths that can become cancerous over time. In the intestinal wall then results in a tumor. It can grow through the intestinal wall. The cancer cells may end up as in the lymph nodes around the intestines or blood. In this way, the cancer cells may spread to other organs such as the liver, bones, or the lungs. Those are metastases.
Colon cancer is also called bowel cancer.
What Are The Signs And Symptoms Of Colon Cancer?
What complaints do people with colon cancer?
- Blood in the stool, sometimes with mucus. Often, the blood can not be seen with the naked eye. Especially when the tumor is at the beginning of the large intestine, this is difficult. The stool can be very dark in color by the blood, almost black. Sometimes the stool is just bright red in color. The tumor is then at the end of the intestine near the anus.
- Less pressure. You think you need to go to the toilet, but this is not so.
- Constipation. That may be because the tumor partly blocks the stool. The feces thus sometimes is in the form of a pencil (pencil stools). You can also have one day suffer from constipation and another day of diarrhea.
- Anemia due to blood loss into the intestine. You are always tired or dizzy.
- Weight loss without apparent cause.
- Vague abdominal pain or a tender spot in the abdomen.
How Do You Get Colon Cancer?
It is still not entirely clear what is causing colon cancer. But it is known that these things increase the risk of colon cancer:
- Certain intestinal diseases, such as colon polyps, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and previously treated bowel polyps and colon cancer.
- Lifestyle and eating habits. Colon cancer is more common in people who are overweight and have little movement. Doctors suspect also smoking and alcohol increase the risk of colon cancer. Nutrition also plays a role. Dairy products, fibers, fish, fruits and vegetables probably protect against colon cancer. What is certain is that eating red meat increases the risk of colon cancer. Under red meat includes all types of meat except chicken, Turkey and other poultry. Meat that has been edited, such as cold cuts or sausages, is worse than unprocessed meat.
- Heredity. Colon cancer is usually not hereditary. But at five to ten of the hundred people with colon cancer heredity plays a role. Do you have a family member whose colon cancer has been discovered for fifty years? If you have at least two relatives with colon cancer? Then it may be a hereditary form. There are also two inherited bowel disorders that can lead to colon cancer: familial adenomatous polyposis and hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC).
Is Colon Cancer Hereditary?
In most people with colon cancer, the disease is not hereditary. In five to ten out of a hundred people is cancer or hereditary. In some families, cancer often. Sometimes it remains unclear where that comes from.
Of these two hereditary bowel disease is known to causes cancer:
- Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). In familial adenomatous polyposis occur hundreds of benign polyps in the colon. These polyps occur mostly already in childhood or adolescence. If a doctor does not remove them, they are almost always malignant. It may be necessary due to the high risk of colorectal cancer is to remove the entire colon.
- Lynch syndrome (formerly called HNPCC this: hereditary non-polyposis colorectal carcinoma). Lynch syndrome is an inherited form of colon cancer. The symptoms usually begin around the age of forty five. This is an important difference from the normal intestinal cancer, which usually begins around the age of sixty. The Lynch syndrome is often also in another part of the colon than non-hereditary colorectal cancer.
Colon Cancer Tests And Diagnosis
To be able to diagnose colon cancer, the doctor tells you all sorts of questions first. They will also do a physical examination. Hereby expresses them gently on your abdomen. Do you have blood in the stool? Then the doctor also examines your rectum. They do this by two fingers in your anus. So feel the doctor if there are deviations, such as accumulated feces or possibly a tumor.
- In the hospital can be a stomach-intestine-liver doctor or an internist to do further research, for example: Examination of your urine and feces. Blood in the stool is often only to discover with research in a laboratory.
- Blood tests to the amount of CEA in the blood. Many people with colon cancer have an increased quantity of this substance in their blood.
- Endoscopic examination. In such an examination, the doctor looks at a part of your bowel inside with a small camera to a tube. Examples are a sigmoid microscopy, a rectoscopia or colonoscopy.
- X-ray of the colon.
- CT scan. The doctor will examine this if there are metastases in the abdominal cavity.
- Ultrasound of the liver. This allows the doctor to see if there are metastases to the liver.
- MRI scan. Also with this examination the doctor can detect metastases.
What Is The Treatment For Colon Cancer?
There are several treatments in colon cancer: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or a combination of these treatments.
When is what treatment suitable?
- People with colon cancer usually get a surgery in which the surgeon've trimmed away the diseased part of the intestine. This is usually with a keyhole surgery in the abdomen. The surgeon also retrieves healthy bowel tissue. So is the chance that cancer cells left behind. After the doctor has cut away the tissue, they attach the two intestine parts back together again. Sometimes can't do that. For example, in emergency surgery. Or when the doctor must evict the sphincter muscle of the anus also. Then a stoma (temporarily). A small tumor in the rectum the doctor usually pretty easy through the anus.
- Radiation therapy is especially suitable for a tumor in the rectum. Most people get radiation therapy before she had surgery. It may be that after the surgery yet tumor cells are left behind. Radiation reduces the risk that those tumor cells to tumors grow. In addition, some tumors during surgery easier to remove when they first are irradiated.
- Is the cancer spread, you will get probably chemotherapy. These medications can reach cancer cells in almost your entire body. Also, when the tumor has grown through the intestinal wall, but have not spread, you can get chemotherapy.