Colon Cancer
Colon cancer may be the second leading trigger of deaths resulting from cancer. Every year, approximately 48,000 men and women will die in the U.S. from colon cancer. Many of these deaths would be prevented with early detection and treatment through routine colon cancer screening.
Colon Cancer Progresses Through Stages
The stage in the colon cancer determines the correct treatment and determines the patient’s relative 5-year survival rate that is the percentage of colon cancer patients who live at least Five many years following becoming diagnosed. Colon cancer progresses in stages as follows:
Stage 0: The disease starts being a little non-cancerous growth, referred to as a polyp, during the colon. Some of these polyps grow to be precancerous, and more than time, turn cancerous. Growth has not progressed beyond the inner layer (mucosa) from the colon.
Stage 1: The cancer has started to work its way from the first layers with the colon – the mucosa and the submucosa.
Stage 2: The cancer has advanced beyond the very first a couple of layers of the colon and is spreading deeper in the wall in the colon to the muscularis and the serosa but isn’t inside 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, everyone, even people who are not at high risk, that is, without symptoms and without the need of household history of colon cancer, must be screened. Cancer specialists suggest that diagnostic tests for this sort of folks begin at age 50 and consist of tests that detect colon cancer within the body:
Colonoscopy, at least every ten years,
Sigmoidoscopy, at least each Five years,
Double-contrast Barium Enema, at least each Five years, or
Virtual Colonoscopy (computed tomographic colonography), at least every 5 years
These testing permit a doctor to really see the growth or cancer in the colon. The frequency at which these testing are repeated depends on what’s found during the procedure.
Cancer specialists also recommend screening that search blood in the stool, these kinds of as:
Annual Guaiac-based Fecal Occult Blood Test (gFOBT)
Such tests detect the presence of blood from tumors inside stool. Commonly these tests are not as highly effective at detecting colon cancer as those people that detect cancer from the body.
Stage of Colon Cancer Determines Treatments and Relative 5-Year Survival Rates
If the disease is detected being a tiny polyp during a routine testing test, such as a colonoscopy, the polyp can normally be taken out during the colonoscopy without the need to your surgical removal of any from the colon.
When the polyp becomes a tumor and reaches Stage A single or Stage 2, the tumor along with a portion on the colon on both sides is surgical removed. The relative 5-year survival rate is over 90% for Stage One and 73% for Stage 2.
If the disease advances to a Stage 3, a colon resection is no longer sufficient and also the patient also needs to undergo chemotherapy. The relative 5-year survival rate drops to 53%, depending on this sort of causes as the quantity of lymph nodes that contain cervical cancer.
By the time the colon cancer reaches Stage 4, treatment may require the use of chemotherapy and other drugs and surgery on numerous organs. If the size and range of tumors in other organs (such as the liver and lungs) are little enough, surgery is the initial treatment, followed by chemotherapy. In some cases the size or number of tumors inside the other organs takes away the selection of surgical treatment as the 1st treatment. If chemotherapy along with other drugs can reduce the number and size of these tumors, surgical treatment might then turn into an choice as the second form of treatment. If not, chemotherapy along with other drugs (possibly through clinical trials) may well temporarily stop or reduce the continued spread in the cancer. The relative 5-year survival rate drops to approximately 8%.
As the relative 5-year survival rates indicate, the time frame wherever colon cancer is detected and treated makes a dramatic difference. If detected and treated early, the person has an great chance of surviving the disease. As detection and treatment is delayed, the odds begin 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 as soon as the colon cancer reaches Stage 4.
Failure to Screen for Colon Cancer May possibly Constitute Medical Malpractice
Unfortunately, all too often doctors don’t recommend routine colon cancer tests to their patients. By the time the cancer is discovered – often since the tumor has grown so big that it’s causing blockage, since the patient has unexplained anemia that’s obtaining progressively worse, or due to the fact the patient begins to notice other symptoms – the colon cancer has already advanced to a Stage 3 or even a Stage 4. The person now faces a much numerous prognosis than if the cancer were detected early via routine screening. In medical malpractice terms, the individual has suffered a “loss of chance” of the better recovery. That may be to say, mainly because the doctor did not advise the person to undergo routine screening, the cancer is now additional advanced and the individual includes a significantly reduced chance of surviving the cancer. The failure of a doctor to advise the individual about diagnostic tests choices for colon cancer might constitute medical malpractice.
Contact a Lawyer Today
You have to contact a lawyer immediately if you consider there was a delayed diagnosis of colon cancer due to a doctor’s failure to recommend routine colon cancer screening. This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended being legal (or medical) advice. You need to not act, or refrain from acting, based upon any facts at this web site without looking for professional legal counsel. A competent lawyer with experience in medical malpractice can support you in determining whether you possibly can have a claim for a delay inside the diagnosis of colon cancer as a result of a failure on the part on the doctor to provide colon cancer screening. There’s a time limit in cases like these so do not wait to call.