Colon Cancer Screening and Healthcare Malpractice8316260

Colon cancer is the second major trigger of deaths resulting from cancer. Each and every year, roughly 48,000 men and women will die in the U.S. from colon cancer. Several of these deaths would be prevented with early detection and treatment through routine colon cancer screening.

Colon Cancer Progresses Via Stages

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

Stage : The disease begins as a tiny non-cancerous development, referred to as a polyp, in the colon. Some of these polyps become precancerous, and over 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 very 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 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 a single or far more of the nearby lymph nodes.

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

Screening for Colon Cancer

In order to detect colon cancer early, absolutely everyone, even men and women who are not at high risk, that is, with no symptoms and with no family history of colon cancer, must be screened. Cancer specialists suggest that screening for such individuals start at age 50 and consist of tests that detect colon cancer in the body:

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

These tests let a doctor to in fact see the development 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 appear 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. Normally these tests are not as successful at detecting colon cancer as these that detect cancer in the body.

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

If the illness is detected as a modest polyp throughout a routine screening test, such as a colonoscopy, the polyp can typically be taken out for the duration of the colonoscopy with out the require for the surgical removal of any of the colon.

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 over 90% for Stage 1 and 73% for Stage 2.

If the illness advances to a Stage 3, a colon resection is no longer sufficient and the patient also demands to undergo chemotherapy. The relative 5-year survival rate drops to 53%, based on such elements as the number of lymph nodes that contain cancer.

By the time the colon cancer reaches Stage 4, therapy may possibly need the use of chemotherapy and other drugs and surgery on numerous organs. If the size and number of tumors in other organs (such as the liver and lungs) are small enough, surgery could be the initial treatment, followed by chemotherapy. In some instances the size or quantity of tumors in the other organs requires away the alternative of surgery as the initial therapy. If chemotherapy and other drugs can reduce the number and size of these tumors, surgery might then grow to be an selection as the second type of therapy. If not, chemotherapy and other drugs (possibly through clinical trials) could temporarily cease or lessen the continued spread of the cancer. The relative 5-year survival price drops to roughly eight%.

As the relative 5-year survival rates indicate, the time frame in which colon cancer is detected and treated tends to make a dramatic distinction. If detected and treated early, the person has an exceptional chance of surviving the disease. As detection and treatment is delayed, the odds commence turning against the individual so that by the time the colon cancer progresses to Stage 3, the percentage is almost even. And the odds drop precipitously when the colon cancer reaches Stage 4.

Failure to Screen for Colon Cancer Could Constitute Medical Malpractice

However, all as well usually physicians do not advise routine colon cancer screening to their sufferers. By the time the cancer is discovered - typically simply because the tumor has grown so massive that it is causing blockage, because the patient has unexplained anemia that is obtaining progressively worse, or because the patient starts to notice other symptoms - the colon cancer has already 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 healthcare malpractice terms, the individual has suffered a "loss of chance" of a much better recovery. That is to say, since the doctor did not advise the person to undergo routine screening, the cancer is now a lot much more advanced and the person has a a lot decreased chance of surviving the cancer. The failure of a doctor to advise the person about screening alternatives for colon cancer may possibly constitute healthcare malpractice.