Colon Cancer Screening and Health-related Malpractice3820980

Colon cancer is the second top cause of deaths resulting from cancer. Every year, approximately 48,000 individuals will die in the U.S. from colon cancer. Numerous of these deaths would be prevented with early detection and treatment through routine colon cancer screening.

Colon Cancer Progresses By means of Stages

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

Stage : The illness begins as a small non-cancerous growth, referred to as a polyp, in the colon. Some of these polyps turn out to be precancerous, and more than time, turn cancerous. Development has not progressed beyond the inner layer (mucosa) of the colon.

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

Stage 2: The cancer has advanced beyond the 1st two layers of the colon and is spreading deeper by means of 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, everybody, even men and women who are not at high threat, that is, with no symptoms and with no household history of colon cancer, ought to be screened. Cancer specialists recommend that screening for such people commence at age 50 and consist of tests that detect colon cancer in the physique:

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

These tests allow a physician to truly 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 procedure.

Cancer specialists also recommend 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. Usually these tests are not as successful at detecting colon cancer as these that detect cancer in the body.

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

If the illness is detected as a small polyp for the duration of a routine screening test, such as a colonoscopy, the polyp can usually be taken out in the course of the colonoscopy with no the require for the surgical removal of any of the colon.

colon cancer signs

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 rate 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 wants to undergo chemotherapy. The relative 5-year survival price drops to 53%, depending on such elements as the number 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 number of tumors in other organs (such as the liver and lungs) are little sufficient, surgery might be the initial therapy, followed by chemotherapy. In some instances the size or quantity of tumors in the other organs requires away the selection of surgery as the initial remedy. If chemotherapy and other drugs can reduce the quantity and size of these tumors, surgery may then become an selection as the second form of remedy. If not, chemotherapy and other drugs (possibly through clinical trials) may possibly temporarily stop or minimize the continued spread of the cancer. The relative 5-year survival price drops to about eight%.

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

Failure to Screen for Colon Cancer May Constitute Healthcare Malpractice

However, all also often physicians do not suggest routine colon cancer screening to their sufferers. By the time the cancer is found - frequently because the tumor has grown so huge that it is causing blockage, simply because the patient has unexplained anemia that is acquiring progressively worse, or simply because the patient starts to notice other symptoms - the colon cancer has currently advanced to a Stage 3 or even a Stage 4. The person now faces a a lot various 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 greater recovery. That is to say, simply because the medical doctor did not advise the individual to undergo routine screening, the cancer is now much a lot more sophisticated and the person has a much decreased likelihood of surviving the cancer. The failure of a medical doctor to advise the individual about screening choices for colon cancer may possibly constitute health-related malpractice.