Large Bowel Cancer

Bowel cancer is the third commonest cancer in the world. Diagnosing and treating it early costs individuals and countries considerably less. The early diagnosis is made by colonoscopic examination.

If blood comes in the stool for no reason at all, if there is weight loss together with complaints of diarrhoea and constipation, or if there is a family history of colon cancer or polyps, a specialist in gastroenterology should be seen without fail and a colonoscopic examination carried out.

They arise most often from polyps inside the bowel. (Note: three quarters of polyps are benign and a quarter are malignant, and of the malignant ones a very small proportion turn into cancer after 7–8 years.) For this reason, if polyps are seen during colonoscopy they should without fail be taken out by polypectomy.

If you are over 40 you should have a colonoscopic examination every 5–10 years and a test for hidden blood in the stool every two years, even if you have no complaints at all.

The first two pictures show a cancerous mass closing off the lumen of the large bowel. The last picture shows an ulcerated cancerous mass beginning 10 cm up the rectum, in a patient who came with the complaint of blood coming from the back passage.