Colon Cancer Screening and Medical Malpractice6615643

Colon cancer is the second major cause of deaths resulting from cancer. Each and every year, approximately 48,000 people will die in the U.S. from colon cancer. A lot of of these deaths would be prevented with early detection and treatment via routine colon cancer screening.

Colon Cancer Progresses Through Stages

The stage of the colon cancer determines the appropriate treatment and determines the patient's relative 5-year survival price which is the percentage of colon cancer patients who reside at least 5 years right after being diagnosed. Colon cancer progresses in stages as follows:

Stage : The disease begins as a small non-cancerous growth, 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 started to operate its way through the first layers of the colon - the mucosa and the submucosa.

Stage 2: The cancer has advanced beyond the very first two layers of the colon and is spreading deeper via 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 one particular or a lot more of the nearby lymph nodes.

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

Screening for Colon Cancer

In order to detect colon cancer early, every person, even people who are not at high threat, that is, with no symptoms and with no loved ones history of colon cancer, should 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 ten years, Sigmoidoscopy, at least every single 5 years, Double-contrast Barium Enema, at least every single 5 years, or Virtual Colonoscopy (computed tomographic colonography), at least every 5 years

These tests enable a physician to actually see the growth or cancer inside the colon. The frequency at which these tests are repeated depends on what is discovered for the duration of the process.

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

Annual Guaiac-based Fecal Occult Blood Test (gFOBT)

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

Stage of Colon Cancer Determines Treatments and Relative 5-Year Survival Rates

If the disease is detected as a modest polyp during a routine screening test, such as a colonoscopy, the polyp can usually be taken out in the course of the colonoscopy with out the need for the surgical removal of any of the colon.

what is colon cancer

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 more than 90% for Stage 1 and 73% for Stage 2.

If the disease advances to a Stage 3, a colon resection is no longer adequate and the patient also demands to undergo chemotherapy. The relative 5-year survival rate drops to 53%, depending on such variables as the quantity of lymph nodes that include cancer.

By the time the colon cancer reaches Stage 4, remedy might require the use of chemotherapy and other drugs and surgery on a number of organs. If the size and quantity of tumors in other organs (such as the liver and lungs) are little sufficient, surgery might be the initial treatment, followed by chemotherapy. In some circumstances the size or number of tumors in the other organs takes away the alternative of surgery as the initial therapy. If chemotherapy and other drugs can reduce the number and size of these tumors, surgery could then grow to be an choice as the second form of treatment. If not, chemotherapy and other drugs (possibly by means of clinical trials) might temporarily cease or lessen the continued spread of the cancer. The relative 5-year survival rate drops to about eight%.

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

Failure to Screen for Colon Cancer Might Constitute Health-related Malpractice

However, all as well frequently physicians do not suggest routine colon cancer screening to their sufferers. By the time the cancer is found - frequently since the tumor has grown so huge that it is causing blockage, due to the fact the patient has unexplained anemia that is obtaining progressively worse, or simply because the patient begins to notice other symptoms - the colon cancer has already advanced to a Stage 3 or even a Stage 4. The individual now faces a considerably various prognosis than if the cancer had been detected early via routine screening. In health-related malpractice terms, the individual has suffered a "loss of chance" of a greater recovery. That is to say, because the medical doctor did not advise the individual to undergo routine screening, the cancer is now much more advanced and the person has a a lot lowered chance of surviving the cancer. The failure of a doctor to advise the individual about screening choices for colon cancer may constitute healthcare malpractice.