Tragically, some times a patient will do the right thing and tell his or her doctor that they are seeing blood in their stool only to be told by the doctor, without any tests, not to worry that it is probably just hemorrhoids. some time later this individual learns that the bleeding was really the result of a cancerous tumor in the colon. The individual now has advanced colon cancer that has reached the lymph nodes or even to a different organ, such as the liver or the lungs. What makes this happen and what options does the person and his or her family have when it does?
The first thing to note is that most physicians concur that when an individual presents with rectal bleeding or blood in the stool a colonoscopy should be conducted so as to determine the cause of the blood. The colonoscopy helps figure out whether the blood is from colon cancer or something else like hemorrhoids. However merely assuming that the blood is due to hemorrhoids risks missing a cancer.
Colon cancer is a disease that progresses over time. As it advances it gets more difficult to treat successfully. For instance, when the disease is in stage 1 or stage 2, it is still contained inside the wall of the colon. Treatment for these stages generally involves surgery to remove the tumor and adjacent areas of the colon. Chemotherapy is frequently not used in the treatment of stage 1 and stage 2 unless it may be given to a person who is young as a preventative treatment. With surgery, someone with stage 1 or stage 2 has a good chance of still being alive at least 5 years after diagnosis. The relative 5-year survival rate is over ninety percent for stage I and seventy three percent for stage II.
By the time the cancer has spread outside the colon. At this stage treatment calls for both surgery and chemotherapy (perhaps with other drugs ). The relative 5-year survival rate for stage 3 is fifty three percent. If it gets to stage 4, the relative 5-year survival rate is lowered to approximately 8%. Treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications may or may not still be effective. When treatment ceases to be effective, the disease becomes fatal. Roughly 48,000 men and women will die from colon cancer this year alone.
If the individual with rectal bleeding gets a colonoscopy and the tumor is discovered prior to spreading to the lymph nodes or to other organs, it can often be removed in the course of the colonoscopy if it is sufficiently small or by surgically extracting the part of the colon containing the tumor. Thus the additional time before diagnosis and treatment may be sufficient to allow the cancer to get an advanced stage. When this is the case, the patient will need to undergo additional treatments and will have a drastically decreased chance of living for at least five years beyond diagnosis. Subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which the physician was responsible for the delay, this may give rise to a claim for medical malpractice, or in the most severe case, for wrongful death.
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