"Bowel cancer" must have been heard of by everyone, it refers to the appearance of cancerous epithelial tissue in the colon, rectum and other large intestines!
In recent years, affected by the aging of the population of Chinese residents, changes in diet and living habits, intestinal cancer has surpassed stomach cancer, and has become the most high-incidence gastrointestinal cancer in China, with 40-55 years old as the high incidence age group.
Because there are no typical symptoms in the early stage of bowel cancer, and patients do not even have any abnormal performance, the early diagnosis rate of bowel cancer in China is not optimistic.
Of the nearly 500,000 newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients each year, less than one-third are still in the early and middle stages. The rest of the patients have basically entered the local invasion, metastasis and spread phase, although there are surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and other treatment options. However, due to the metastasis of bowel cancer, the prognosis effect is not ideal, and the long-term survival period is relatively short.
So the question is, what symptoms appear, which are related to bowel cancer, so that patients can find the disease as soon as possible?
1. Defecation habits
Under normal circumstances, the daily intake of food in adults requires a long period of digestion and absorption, so the number of bowel movements per day in healthy people is about 1-2 times a day, and the number of bowel movements per week is more than 3 times, and a unique bowel pattern will be formed, which can even be accurate to a certain period of time.
And if the recent bowel pattern suddenly appeared to last more than 2 weeks of changes, such as more and more times of defecation, there is a feeling of incomplete defecation, tenesmus and other symptoms, and the excreted stool is not formed, just like diarrhea in the stool there is obvious mucus inclusion, this may be the manifestation of bowel cancer, cancer changes the secretion of the intestinal mucosa, promotes intestinal peristalsis dysfunction, resulting in changes in the patient's bowel regularity, which is also one of the common manifestations of bowel cancer in the early stage;
2. Abdominal pain
Among all colorectal cancer patients who are first examined, abdominal pain has the highest incidence, with nearly 60 to 81% of patients having symptoms of abdominal pain. The causes of abdominal pain are quite complex, including local invasion of tissues by tumors, irritation of the intestinal mucosa, and adhesions to surrounding tissues.
In the early stage, abdominal pain is mostly manifested as irregular and irregular onset of vague pain, dull pain, knife-like pain, and then the pain gradually deepens and the pain time becomes longer and longer. Once intestinal obstruction and intestinal perforation are developed, patients may also experience severe, unbearable abdominal pain, which cannot be relieved by taking pain medications;
3, bloody stool symptoms
Blood is the most typical manifestation of colorectal cancer, and due to the different nature of bleeding, the symptoms of blood and stool are also different. In the case of rectal cancer, the initial manifestation is mostly manifested as fecal occult blood, and there are traces of blood on the side of the stool. Colon cancer, on the other hand, manifests as fecal occult blood and black tarry stool.
As the amount of bleeding increases, intestinal damage becomes more and more serious, and cancerous erosion leads to infection, patients can also excrete mixed blood stools that are visible to the naked eye, that is, stools are mixed with dark red or dark red blood, mucus or pus. After entering the advanced stage, the patient may also excrete pus and bloody stools, and there are blood clots or necrotic tissue in the pus blood.
Written at the end: As mentioned at the beginning of the article, when bowel cancer has symptoms and patients can find abnormalities on their own, it is basically in the middle and advanced stages of cancer, or even in the terminal stage. Therefore, for middle-aged and elderly people with a family history of bowel cancer, a history of chronic intestinal diseases, and an age of more than 50 years, in addition to observing physical changes, regular bowel cancer screening is also necessary.