colon cancer

　What Is Colon Cancer?

Colon cancer refers to a tumor arising from colonic mucosal epithelium which becomes malignant under the impact of various carcinogenic factors like environment, genetics, etc. It often occurs in rectum and the junction of rectum and sigmoid colon. The incidence rate of colon cancer is second only to gastric and esophageal cancer. Conlon cancer is more common in the people at age of 40 to 50 and patients with colon cancer who are under age of 40 accounts for approximately 15%. The male and female ratio is 2:1.

　　What are the Causes of Colon Cancer?

1. Diet: diets high in fat or low in fiber are believed to predispose humans to colon cancer.
　　2. Genetics: if first-degree relatives develop colon cancer, the risk of the next generations developing colon cancer is higher than others.
　　3. Colon polyps: polyps grow in the inner wall of colon or rectum, which are benign initially but it is likely to become malignant.
　　4. Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis: the risk of developing colon cancer in patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is 30 times higher than others.

　　Who are High-risk Populations?

1. The population has a history of familial polyposis.
　　2. The people have first-degree relatives with colon cancer.
　　3. Occult blood test shows positive in a long term.
　　4. Patients develop chronic ulcerative colitis.
　　5. The population has chronic diarrhea or chronic constipation.

　　What are the Symptoms of Colon Cancer?

1. Bright red or dark red blood in your stools
　　2. Abdominal pain, bloating, bad digestion, loss of appetite
　　3. Changes in your bowel habits, including intermittent (alternating) constipation or passing stools more frequently than usual, even diarrhea
　　4. Stools that are thinner than normal
　　5. Long-term anal ulcers, continuous anal pain that have not been cured
　　6. Signs of liver metastasis such as jaundice, ascites, edema

　　How Colon Cancer Will be Diagnosed?

1. Digital rectal exam: doctor may insert a gloved finger into your rectum through your anus to check whether there is lump or not.
　　2. Fecal occult blood test (FOBT): it is used for check the hidden blood in stool, because hyperplastic tissues of colon cancer usually will effuse a small amount of blood and once the blood entered the stool, it will be discharged. If FOBT is continuously positive with many times, it indicates chronic bleeding of digestive tract thus further tests should be done.
　　3. X-ray test: it includes barium meal examination of total digestive tract and barium enema. The barium outlines colon on the x-rays. It can check whether there are multiple polyps and multiple cancer focus or not.
　　4. Colonoscopy: it should be done when patients who experience blood in stool, changes in bowel habits, and with negative result for digital rectal exam. Colonoscopy will detect various kinds of lesions in colon and if focus is found, they are sent to do tissue biopsy.
　　5. Ultrasonography, CT scan, MRI: they cannot be directly used for diagnosis of colon cancer, but they are of some value in judging the cancer’s location, size, its relations with surrounding tissues, lymph and whether liver metastasis occurs or not.

　　Stages of Colon Cancer are:

Stage 0: abnormal cells are found in the wall of colon and colon cancer in this stage is also called primary cancer.
　　Stage I: Cancer is in the inner layers of colon, invading submucosa
　　Stage II: Cancer has spread through the muscle wall of the colon, but it has not spread to lymph nodes.
　　Stage III: Cancer has spread to the lymph nodes around colon, but it has not invaded other parts of body.
　　Stage IV: Cancer has spread to other organs, such as lung, liver, abdominal wall, ovary, etc.
　　Reoccurrence: colon cancer reoccurs after treatment and the recurrent regions are colon or other organs.

　　What are the Treatments for Colon Cancer?

1. Surgery: it is a common treatment for colon cancer. Surgery is generally used in early colon cancer and patient’s most part or entire colon will be removed.
　　2. Radiation therapy: it is carried out after surgery to decrease local recurrence rate of colon.
　　3. Chemotherapy: it can be used to destroy cancer cells after surgery, controlling tumor growth or relieving symptoms of colon cancer.
　　4. Biological immunotherapy: with no pain and no need to be hospitalization, it not only can relieve toxic side effects brought by radiation therapy, but also can improve patient’s immunity and quality of life.

　　Traditional Chinese Medicine

Combined with traditional Chinese medicine, firstly, human body can get back to be dynamic balance, secondly, complications after surgery can be reduced, thirdly, sensitivity to radiation therapy and chemotherapy can be enhanced, reduced toxic side effects, fourthly, risk of reoccurrence and metastases can be decreased, thus patient’s quality of life can be improved and survival rate can be prolonged.

　　What does Postoperative Nursing Include?

1. About Clothes: soft, comfortable, elastic clothing should be chosen, in addition, belt should not be too tight so as to avoid pressing the wound.
　　2. About Bath: after the wound is healed completely, patient can take bath.
　　3. About Diet: patients need to ensure nutritional balance, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables.
　　4. About Exercise: appropriate exercise should be done to enhance physical condition and improve cold tolerance and resistance of body.
　　5. About Mental State: patient should keep optimistic and positive attitude, as well as avoid being depressed and tense.

　　What kinds of supports can be obtained?

Practice proves that the clinic team services composed by multiple disciplines like oncosurgery, oncology, pathology, imageology and anesthesia doctors as well as professional nurses, can provide patients with most effective, most suitable and most economic treatment plan, and also can greatly improve the therapeutic effect of treating cancer patients.
　　“One station” medical system constructed by Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou combining multiple disciplines, can perform comprehensive diagnosis and treatment for patients under the condition of without adding patients’ burden. Therefore, on one hand, it can provide all-round and heartfelt medical services, and on the other hand, it improves medical efficiency and level. There are many channels can be applied to conduct the communication between patients and doctors, like online consultation, email, telephone conversation, and face-to-face consultation. All these consultation services can effectively help patients to fight the cancer. While the medical team faced by the patients includes doctors, nurses, dietitians, interpreters and so on to meet various demands in different level of different countries. Patients would be more confident under the unobstructed communication environment to cooperate the hospital to diagnose and treat the diseases.