Colon cancer or colorectal cancer is one important cancer. In the western world, this cancer is considered as the third most common type of cancer and the second leading cause of death that are cancer related. It is a disease that affects the large intestine, an organ that absorbs the nutrients from the food, and stores and eliminates the fecal material. The large intestine has two parts, the colon and the rectum.

Colon cancer occurs when tumors appear inside the colon and rectum. These tumors can be malignant, in which case they do not present any danger and they can be removed by a simple surgery, and beningn. Beningn tumors are cancerous tumors that can spread and cause life-threatening complications. If you have been diagnosed with a beningn colon tumor you must begin the colon cancer treatment as soon as possible because if the illness is left untreated it can spread to other organs such as the liver and the lungs. There are three methods of treating colon cancer – by surgery, radiation therapy and by chemotherapy.

Colon cancer surgery is the most widely-used method of treating the disease. In colon cancer surgery, the part of the colon that has the tumor and the infected tissue on it is removed, and then the remaining parts of the colon are sewn back. Lately, colon cancer surgeries are done with the help of an instrument called laparoscope, which enables the doctors operate through a very small abdominal incision, leaving only a small scar behind.

Radiation therapy is a treatment that involves the use of high energy rays that can kill the cancer cells. The advantage of this method is that it can also kill the cancerous cells that have spread and were not detected yet. Radiation therapy is required when the cancer has spread to another organ and the surgery can not remove it form there. The bad part of radiation therapy is that it has side effects that include diarrhea, tiredness or bladder irritation.

Chemotherapy uses special anti cancerous drugs that are injected into the patient’s blood and spread through the whole body, killing all the cancerous cells. This kind of therapy is used when the cancer has spread to many places and surgery or radiation therapy can’t cover such large areas. Unfortunately chemotherapy has the worst side effects. The most common are loss of hair, loss of appetite, fatigue, easy bruising and bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea.

Colon cancer is thought to be the second most common type of cancer, after lung cancer. The presence of polyps in the colon lead to colon cancer. There are several ways to detect colon cancer, all tests done at your doctor’ s office. There are many different tests that doctors use when searching for colon cancer in their patients. Each of these tests are different and can help the patient in their own way.

The presence of polyps in your colon should not be so frightening, because the majority are benign. However, in time, they can lead to colon cancer. Studies have shown that people that have their polyps removed lower the risk of developing colon cancer. To detect these polyps and even colon cancer can take as less as five minutes. One of the tests that your doctor can do to detect if you have colon cancer is flexible sigmoidoscopy. This test is very useful because with it’ s help doctors can detect colon cancer in the early stages, thus reducing the risk of death. Doctors can also tell if you are at risk of developing colon cancer with the help of this test, thus being able to prevent it.

However, this test is not very suitable when it comes to hereditary cases of colon cancer. If you suffer from such a case, it is best that you use colonoscopy as a way of detecting colon cancer. Flexible sigmoidoscopy can be done without the help of sedation and this colon cancer test only takes about five minutes. This test can detect as much as seventy percent of all colon cancer cases and the number is even higher when it comes to detecting polyps. When having this test to detect colon cancer, you will fell no discomfort at all. The biggest advantage when using this test is that it can find colon cancer in its early stages and so your changes of getting cured are very big.

The second procedure that one can have to detect colon cancer is colonoscopy. This is still the leading procedure when it comes to reducing the risk of colon cancer. More than ninety percent of all people that use this test reduce considerably their risks of developing colon cancer. This is also a very good procedure when it comes to biopsy or the removal of your polyps. Although the other test seems a little better when it comes to colon cancer, this is the most used and it also gives very good results.