Colorectal cancer is associated with cancerous growth that starts from rectum or colon, due to this it is also popularly known as colon cancer or bowel cancer. As a leading cancer hospital, Southlake General Surgery has significantly felt a meteoric rise in colorectal cancer patients in developed countries.
Statistics tell that it is the 4 most common cancer type diagnosed in America, 1 out of 21 men and 1 out 23 women are likely to have developed colorectal cancer in their lifetime.
There are certain risk factors that can increase the chance of colorectal cancer such as-
- Obesity
- Smoking
- lack of physical activity
Being in America, if you are diagnosed with cancer of the bowel, you can choose to get colorectal cancer treatment in Texas, where are the best facilities and doctors. However, before taking any decision here are a list of things you must know before going for treatment.
Staging process
Staging defines where the cancer is located and how much it has spread. Also, in the staging process, a doctor will determine if the cancer has affected any other organ or not.
To determine the spread or the growth of cancer, the doctor will recommend you to go for image scans of abdomen, chest, and pelvis. Image scans are one of the best ways to detect cancer, they a doctor’s visual information to determine the risk of cancer growth. It is a possibility that an image scan is not able to detect microscopic cancer growth.
The important part of the staging process is known as ‘‘T’’ and “N” staging in which it is checked that how far the cancer has spread, and how many lymph nodes are present. “T” defines the cancer depth-of-invasion and “N” defines the number of lymph nodes associated with cancer growth.
Molecular testing
Molecular testing is very different from generic testing, it is done to understand what kind of mutation the rectum cell is undergoing, which has led to the formation of cancer. Cancer is caused by a mutation in normal cells and tissues.
”Microsatellite instability” in the case of colorectal cancer molecular testing can even impact treatment decisions, molecular testing is a significant help in such cases.
Other than non-metastatic, colorectal cancer growth cause no impact on treatment decisions. So, you might be asked to undergo molecular testing in your case. Discussing it with your doctor can help you understand your condition better.
Side effects of Colon cancer Treatment
If your treatment of colorectal cancer includes chemotherapy, there can be side effects caused by drugs. Different people with different physical aspects shows varying side effects, hence ask your medical team to tell you more about the common side effects of chemotherapy.
Other treatments such as radiation and targeted therapy both show similar signs of side-effects.
Supports and team you require
It is very complicated to tell what kind of team and support a person needs, every person copes with cancer differently. Your coping process may require team which includes-
- Doctor
- A nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant (PA)
- Infusion nurses
- Oncology nurses
- A social worker
- A dietitian, a financial counselor
- A complementary medicine provider
- Clinic assistants and many others
So, you can check with your doctor if they are providing you services that include a full-fledged medical team. Most of the hospitals will not provide you a team. Check beforehand and discuss what more you need on your procedure with your oncologist.