My mother has a large traditional family, with six brothers and nine sisters. Most of
them I have only ever met a handful of times, usually at weddings or funerals.
Despite this, my mother stays in close contact with all of them by phone as often as
she can.
This past year, one of her closer sisters came for a visit. She stayed for about a
month but wasn’t quite feeling herself. After her stay, she returned home to visit her
local clinic, and they sent her off for a more thorough examination at a hospital. It was
then that they found a tumor in her colon that had spread to her liver and lungs. My
mother was heartbroken to learn that her sister was diagnosed with late-stage,
metastatic colon cancer.
The last part of the gastrointestinal tract, the $large intestine$includes both the colon
(about six feet long) and the rectum (the final eight inches or so). This long and
muscular tube is an essential part of human digestion. It’s where reabsorption of
water and important nutrients occurs before removal of toxic waste products.
A great number of gastrointestinal cancer cases are mischaracterized as either colon
or rectal cancer, and despite important differences between cancers of colon and
rectal tissues, the all-encompassing term$colorectal cancer is commonly used for
both.
One of the leading causes of cancer mortality worldwide, colorectal cancer is
estimated to have taken the lives of more than 50,000 people in the United States in
2019.
Development and symptoms
The$development$of cancer in the large intestine is generally a slow process. Initially
developing as a small and benign polyp (usually adenoma) from the glandular cells
lining the colon, it over decades can grow to invade the wall of the colon or rectum.
There, cancer cells penetrate blood vessels or the lymphatic system and travel to
distant sites of the body (typically the liver and lungs).
Although early colorectal cancer is usually asymptomatic, as the polyp grows into a
larger tumor it can implicate the passage of matter through the intestine and disrupt
other normal intestinal functions to cause bleeding. Blood in the stool, although not
always a sign of cancer, is a first indicator of the need for further examination. Other
symptoms that present include but are not limited to abdominal discomfort,
decreased appetite, weight loss, and other irregular changes to bowel movements.
Risk factors
So what puts us at risk for developing this disease?
The traditional “Western lifestyle” has been implicated in the development and
progression of colorectal cancer. Habits such as smoking, heavy alcohol intake,
