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Colon Cancer Is Curable! But Why It Is Increasing In Youngsters? Read To Know:

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By Shaina Sharma
New Update

Cancer, as soon as we hear this word, the fear starts rising in us. It is the second leading cause of death in the whole world. As March is being observed as the Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, we thought of inscribing a write-up on the same, making you all the readers aware about it and let you get familiar with some real life stories to understand the symptoms of Colon Cancer better.

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Receiving an early diagnosis or treatment for cancer is very crucial and maybe not possible because sometimes the symptoms can be similar to the signs of other stomach problems or issues with intestines. So how do we tell and signify them apart.

COLORECTAL CANCER IS INCREASING?

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Colorectal cancer is one of the common cancers found among human body. It’s the third most common cancer that can be detected in our body. Each one of us has around 4% - 5% risk of developing colorectal cancer in our lifetime. Initially it was thought that maybe it’s a white man’s disease, but now it has actually become an incidence and is increasing like an epidemic.

Just like diabetes, now India is suffering with an epidemic of colorectal cancer. So that’s the reason we all are interested in this topic and that’s the reason for celebrating this month to make people aware about how we can prevent it, treat it and can diagnose it early.

SIGNS THAT PEOPLE TEND TO MISS

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Signs are the most sensitive ones which you need to pick up on quickly and sense them before it gets too late. So there are actually features like – sudden change in bowel habit. Suppose; if somebody was having constipation, now suddenly develops diarrhoea or somebody was having  diarrhoea since 3-4 motions a day and now the person is constipated. So that is the most common symptom of colon cancer and you should get checked.

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Other symptoms include; bleeding rectum, any patient with unexplained weight loss. So if you’re doing exercise and losing weight, that’s a different thing. But if you’re not doing anything and still losing weight, it’s an indicator that we are missing something or any patient with unexplained anaemia. These are the most common features which are usually seen, recent change in bowel habit, unexplained weight loss, unexplained anaemia or bleeding for rectum.

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STORY OF NIKKI LAWSON: WHY IN YOUNGSTERS?
Nikki Lawson received the shock of her life just at the age of 35. A couple of years ago, she noticed that her stomach often felt irritable and she would get sudden urges to use the restroom, sometimes with blood in her stool. She even went to the hospital one day when her symptoms were severe, she said and she was told it might be a stomach ulcer before being sent home.

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That was around the time when the actor Chadwick Boseman, passed away. I remember watching him on the news and having the same symptoms, but at that time I was not thinking this is something that I’m going through.”  Lawson said of the ‘Black Panther” star who died of colon cancer at the age of 43 in August 2020.

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Instead, Lawson thought changing her diet would help. She stopped eating certain red meats and ate more fruits and vegetables. She began losing a lot of weight, and thought was the result of her new diet. “But then I went for physical,” Lawson said.

Her primary care physician recommended that she should see a gastroenterologist immediately because she had low iron levels. “When I went and I saw my gastro, she said – ‘I’m sorry, I have bad news. We see something. We  sent it off to get testing. It looks like it is cancer.’ My whole world just kind of blanked out. I was 35, healthy, going about my day, raising my daughter and to get a diagnosis like this, I was just so shocked.” said Lawson.

Anybody with these symptoms which we call as a worrisome ones or anybody who is at a high risk group should get tested. There are some patients who are more prone to colorectal cancer. So if you are in one of those categories, probably then you need screening in terms of a curled blood test, CEA or in terms of colonoscopy.

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Lawson, who was diagnosed with stage-3 rectal cancer, is among a growing group of colon and rectal cancer patients in the world who are getting diagnosed at a young age. The share of colorectal cancer diagnoses among adults younger than 55 in the world has been rising since the 1990s, and no-one knows the answer to – Why?

Colorectal cancer is actually a disease of the elderly population. So anybody more than 60 is definitely more prone. But unfortunately, in recent years, we are now finding young population, even less than 40 with colorectal cancer. And majority of these, they have a genetic, some kind of mutation. Otherwise, it was actually a disease of elderly population only.

REASONS OF RISK

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Patients who have a family history of colorectal cancer, somebody whose father, mother, brother had colorectal cancer or there are patients who had some kind of a colonic polyp which has been excised, maybe early childhood or something are at risk.

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Other patients who have some inflammatory conditions of the intestine like ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease or there are some genetic syndromes like familial adenomatous polyposis.

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There is another HNPCC. So this is a kind of syndrome where colorectal cancer runs in the family. The chances of a person developing colorectal cancer in these genetic syndromes is actually close to 100%. If you are any of these high risk groups, it makes you a definite candidate for getting screened at an early stage.

Colorectal cancer is actually one of the cancers in the body which we call a lifestyle disease. So there are a lot of dietary factors, a lot of lifestyle factors which are associated with colorectal cancer. Lifestyle factors, obesity have been shown to increase the risk of colorectal cancer. So this assertion has actually been proven, especially in men, smoking, alcoholism, they also predispose one to colorectal cancer.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF?

There is another study which has shown that a sedentary lifestyle increases the risk. There are studies which have shown that if you exercise four hours a week, do vigorous activity, it has shown to have a protective effect. There are some other factors like – you diet. So it is important to increase fibre intake, vitamin-C, E, as they are all protective against colorectal cancer. And there are some dietary factors like red meat, processed meats, refined grains, high fat dairy products, starch and sugar. All of these increase the risk of colorectal cancer.

COLORECTAL IS CURABLE

If diagnosed early, colorectal cancer is curable. So if you find a polyp, you excise it, and the patient is cured. He does not even need a follow up. If it is diagnosed at an early stage, there is a good 90% chances of surviving. Even if it is diagnosed at stage-3 cancer, we still have treatment options in the form of surgery.

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There are a lot of chemotherapy drugs to which colorectal cancer responds. And even if it has spread to other parts of the body like liver, lungs, still we can treat them with chemotherapy and long term survival is still possible. So it’s not the case that if somebody gets colorectal cancer, he’s gone or it’s an analytic approach. So still, if you get early treatment, long term survival is possible in colorectal cancers.

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