Hemorrhoids Cure
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angie (68)
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What is bowel cancer?
Bowel is the general term for the long muscular tube that starts at the bottom of the stomach and ends at the anus.
The first part of the bowel is involved with the digestion of food and is known as the ‘small bowel’ because the tube is narrower here.
The ‘large bowel’ follows the small bowel and in a healthy person, the main part of the large bowel (colon) is responsible mostly for absorbing water from the faeces. The last part of the large bowel is known as the rectum, which leads to the anus.
Bowel (colorectal) cancer is cancer of the colon or rectum, and it arises from the cells that line the bowel. The small bowel is strikingly free from cancer risk, and almost all bowel cancers arise in the large bowel.
About 6 per cent of the population in Western countries develop bowel cancer at some time during their lives, making this the second commonest cause of cancer-related death. However, it is curable in 40 to 50 per cent of cases, usually by surgery.
The cancer develops when one of the cells in the colon develops a series of changes (mutations) in some of the genes that control how the cell divides and survives. As a result, the cell divides uncontrollably to form a clump of malignant (cancerous) cells. Initially, these cell changes commonly produce a polyp (a clump of abnormal cells the size of a pea on the end of a stalk of normal cells) called an adenoma.
At this stage, an adenoma is still pre-cancerous (a stage at which it may or may not become cancer), and probably only about 5 per cent of the polyps progress further to become life-threatening cancers.
The polyp enlarges very slowly, probably over about 10 years, up to between 1cm and about 5cm in diameter. The abnormal cells first invade the stalk of the polyp, then the underlying tissue of the colon to which the stalk is attached. This invasion indicates that cancer has developed. The patient will then usually have symptoms, which can include bleeding from the ulcerated tip of the cancer and diarrhoea caused by disturbance in the muscle activity of the colon or to obstruction. The risk of invasive cancer becomes appreciable once the polyp diameter has exceeded 1cm.
About 30 per cent of bowel cancers arise from flat lesions and do not pass through a polyp stage. This particularly occurs with cancers of the proximal (right-sided) colon and caecum.
If the cancer is not removed quickly, cancerous cells can break off from the tumour and move through veins or lymph vessels to form tumour growths (called metastases or secondaries) elsewhere, particularly in lymph glands or in the liver. The cure rate falls sharply once this has happened.
The average age when bowel cancer is first discovered is 65, and it becomes increasingly common with advancing age. Very occasionally, it may affect much younger adults from the age of 20. The rates do not differ strikingly between the sexes, although men are slightly more prone to developing rectal cancer and women to developing cancer of the caecum. This is the point where the appendix is attached.
The appendix itself is rarely the site of cancer, although it can be the site of a much rarer tumour called a ‘carcinoid’. Previous appendicectomy (removal of the appendix) seems to have no effect on the subsequent risk of bowel cancer.
Almost unheard of.
Hmm quite rare but it is still possible.
Melissa, bowel cancer in children ages 3-16 is so rare that most physicians will never see even one case in their lifetime. Cancer of the large bowel is rare in the pediatric age group: one person per one million younger than 20 years in the United States annually. In children, more than half of colon tumors begin on the right side, compared with adults, who have more colon tumors on the left side. Colon cancer in children is often linked to a family colorectal cancer syndrome, or inherited pattern. There is an increasing risk of colorectal cancer in members of families with a family history of intestinal polyps
Well the adult type of bowel or colon cancer is rare in childhood . .it can occur . . but it is rare. You need to realize that cancer is your own cells that mutate . . your cells age . . and change as you age . . thus the body of an infant is different than the body of an elderly adult . . so cancer can be grouped according to age. There are age specific types of cancer. Children 3-16 years old get childhood cancers.
The types of cancers associated with childhood include: Leukemia, brain tumors, neuroblastoma, wilm’s tumor, lymphoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, retinoblastoma, osteosarcoma, germ cell tumors, and a rare type of childhood lung cancer.
The types of cancers associated with adolescents include: many of the childhood cancers, ewing’s sarcoma, germ cell tumors, lymphoma, leukemia, melanoma, ovarian cancer, osteosarcoma, testicular cancer, soft tissue sarcoma.
Bowel cancers occur predominately in older adults. There are some hereditary cancers that can occur in childhood that include colon cancers, but it is rare.
ASCO: Age specific information
http://www.cancer.net/patient/Coping/Age-Specific+Information
NCI: Colon Cancer in Childhood
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/unusual-cancers-childhood/Patient/page4#Section_52