Colon Cancer Screening and Medical Malpractice6611879

Colon cancer is the second leading result in of deaths resulting from cancer. Each year, approximately 48,000 folks will die in the U.S. from colon cancer. Many of these deaths would be prevented with early detection and remedy through routine colon cancer screening.

Colon Cancer Progresses By way of Stages

The stage of the colon cancer determines the suitable treatment and determines the patient's relative 5-year survival rate which is the percentage of colon cancer sufferers who live at least 5 years soon after getting diagnosed. Colon cancer progresses in stages as follows:

Stage : The disease starts as a tiny non-cancerous development, called a polyp, in the colon. Some of these polyps turn into precancerous, and more than time, turn cancerous. Growth has not progressed beyond the inner layer (mucosa) of the colon.

Stage 1: The cancer has began to perform its way via the first layers of the colon - the mucosa and the submucosa.

Stage 2: The cancer has advanced beyond the initial two layers of the colon and is spreading deeper through the wall of the colon into the muscularis and the serosa but is not in the lymph nodes or distant organs.

Stage 3: The cancer has spread to 1 or a lot more of the nearby lymph nodes.

Stage 4: The cancer has spread to other organs (typically the liver or the lungs).

Screening for Colon Cancer

In order to detect colon cancer early, everybody, even men and women who are not at high threat, that is, with no symptoms and with no household history of colon cancer, need to be screened. Cancer specialists suggest that screening for such folks start off at age 50 and consist of tests that detect colon cancer in the body:

Colonoscopy, at least every single ten years, Sigmoidoscopy, at least each 5 years, Double-contrast Barium Enema, at least every single 5 years, or Virtual Colonoscopy (computed tomographic colonography), at least every single 5 years

These tests allow a medical doctor to truly see the growth or cancer inside the colon. The frequency at which these tests are repeated depends on what is located throughout the procedure.

Cancer specialists also advocate tests that look for blood in the stool, such as:

Annual Guaiac-primarily based Fecal Occult Blood Test (gFOBT)

Such tests detect the presence of blood from tumors in the stool. Generally these tests are not as efficient at detecting colon cancer as those that detect cancer in the physique.

Stage of Colon Cancer Determines Therapies and Relative 5-Year Survival Prices

If the illness is detected as a little polyp in the course of a routine screening test, such as a colonoscopy, the polyp can typically be taken out in the course of the colonoscopy without the need to have for the surgical removal of any of the colon.

colon cancer symptoms

When the polyp becomes a tumor and reaches Stage 1 or Stage 2, the tumor and a portion of the colon on both sides is surgical removed. The relative 5-year survival price is over 90% for Stage 1 and 73% for Stage 2.

If the disease advances to a Stage 3, a colon resection is no longer enough and the patient also demands to undergo chemotherapy. The relative 5-year survival price drops to 53%, depending on such aspects as the number of lymph nodes that contain cancer.

By the time the colon cancer reaches Stage 4, remedy may possibly require the use of chemotherapy and other drugs and surgery on multiple organs. If the size and number of tumors in other organs (such as the liver and lungs) are small enough, surgery may be the initial therapy, followed by chemotherapy. In some circumstances the size or quantity of tumors in the other organs takes away the alternative of surgery as the initial remedy. If chemotherapy and other drugs can decrease the quantity and size of these tumors, surgery may possibly then become an choice as the second kind of remedy. If not, chemotherapy and other drugs (possibly by means of clinical trials) may temporarily quit or lessen the continued spread of the cancer. The relative 5-year survival rate drops to roughly 8%.

As the relative 5-year survival prices indicate, the time frame in which colon cancer is detected and treated makes a dramatic difference. If detected and treated early, the individual has an superb opportunity of surviving the disease. As detection and remedy is delayed, the odds start turning against the person so that by the time the colon cancer progresses to Stage 3, the percentage is nearly even. And the odds drop precipitously when the colon cancer reaches Stage 4.

Failure to Screen for Colon Cancer Might Constitute Medical Malpractice

However, all as well typically physicians do not recommend routine colon cancer screening to their individuals. By the time the cancer is found - frequently because the tumor has grown so massive that it is causing blockage, due to the fact the patient has unexplained anemia that is obtaining progressively worse, or since the patient starts to notice other symptoms - the colon cancer has already sophisticated to a Stage 3 or even a Stage 4. The person now faces a much different prognosis than if the cancer had been detected early by means of routine screening. In health-related malpractice terms, the individual has suffered a "loss of chance" of a better recovery. That is to say, simply because the medical doctor did not advise the individual to undergo routine screening, the cancer is now a lot far more sophisticated and the person has a a lot lowered possibility of surviving the cancer. The failure of a medical professional to advise the person about screening options for colon cancer might constitute medical malpractice.