Do you know which is the most highly prevalent gastrointestinal cancer in the mainland? The answer is only three words: colorectal cancer!
The so-called colorectal cancer includes cancerous changes in the colon and rectum. Although the incidence rate of colon cancer is not as good as the latter, its mortality rate is quite high.
The so-called colon cancer, as the name suggests, is a malignant tumor that appears in the colon area, which is more likely to occur at the junction of the rectum and sigmoid colon, and the more people over 40-50 years old, especially men, the incidence is relatively high.
Because the colon is so specially located, patients often have no typical presentation at the beginning of the disease, or even can have no symptoms.
Because of this, among the more than 200,000 newly diagnosed colon cancer patients in the mainland every year, only a very small number are very lucky, found in a physical examination, and are still in the early stages.
Most of the rest of the colon cancer patients have entered the middle and advanced stages, or even the terminal stage, and have serious complications before being diagnosed with colon cancer.
Therefore, it is clinically believed that early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment of colon cancer are the most important points of its treatment.
Regular colon cancer screening is necessary for people over the age of 40 who have a family history of bowel cancer or polyps, and who have had a chronic disease of the intestine and other high-risk bowel cancers.
The following test methods are commonly used in clinical practice and screening for colon cancer;
1. X-ray examination: This examination method includes two categories of barium meal examination and barium enema examination of the whole digestive tract.
The so-called barium meal is actually a white orthodontic crystal, the barium meal for gastrointestinal examination is medicinal barium sulfate, which is insoluble in water and lipids, and will not be absorbed by the gastrointestinal mucosa, so it is not toxic to the human body.
Barium meal contrast examination refers to the use of barium sulfate as a contrast agent, under X-ray irradiation, the means of examining the digestive tract, it can observe the full picture of the colon morphology, preliminary judgment of the colon has multiple polyps or cancer foci, providing a basis for surgical treatment of patients;
2. Colonoscopy: If you have obvious features of bowel cancer, such as changes in stool habits, blood in the stool, but no abnormalities are found during the digital rectal examination, colonoscopy can be used in this case.
Because the colonoscopy is directly through the anus into the intestine, the rectum, colon and other areas of the 360 ° no dead angle examination, it can not only find various types of colon lesions, but also incidentally take tissue pathological biopsy to further clarify the diagnosis;
3. Serum carcinoembryonic antigen: its diagnostic value for early tumors is actually not large, but it is helpful for speculating on the prognosis of bowel cancer and judging recurrence.
Because the serum carcinoembryonic antigen index is often associated with tumor enlargement, this indicator can be restored to normal values after the colon tumor is completely removed.
However, this index increases in the weeks leading up to colon cancer recurrence, so it is helpful in assessing prognosis, monitoring efficacy, and detecting recurrence early;
4. Ultrasound, CT, MRI examination: these examination items can not directly diagnose bowel cancer, but have certain inspection significance for the specific location, size and relationship of surrounding tissues of the cancer, especially to be able to preliminarily determine whether colon cancer has lymph or liver metastasis.
Usually, the purpose of this type of examination in colon cancer patients is to solve the degree of tumor invasion of the intestinal tract and whether there is local or distant metastasis, so it is used for preoperative analysis and postoperative review.
All in all, the initial screening of colon cancer mainly relies on x-ray examination and colonoscopic screening.
If you have recently experienced inexplicable symptoms of discomfort in your body, such as abdominal pain, blood in your stool, changes in stool habits, etc., you should seek medical attention in time for examination.
In addition, people at high risk of bowel cancer should also undergo regular colonoscopic screening according to doctor's recommendations.