What are the main characteristics of colon cancer

What are the main characteristics of colon cancer? I believe many people have this question. Knowing its characteristics can help us detect the disease early, and the chance of recovery is greater with early treatment. Let us learn about the characteristics of colon cancer .

1. Abdominal pain and digestive tract irritation symptoms: Most patients have varying degrees of abdominal pain and discomfort, such as dull abdominal pain, right-sided abdominal fullness, nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite. Symptoms often worsen after eating, sometimes accompanied by intermittent diarrhea or constipation, and are easily confused with chronic appendicitis, ileocecal tuberculosis, ileocecal segmental enteritis, or lymphomas that are common in the right lower abdomen. Colon hepatic flexure cancer can present as paroxysmal colic in the right upper abdomen, similar to chronic cholecystitis. It is generally believed that pain in right-sided colon cancer often reflects to the upper part of the navel; pain in left-sided colon cancer often reflects to the lower part of the navel. If the tumor penetrates the intestinal wall and causes local inflammatory adhesions, or forms a local abscess after chronic perforation, the pain site is the site of the tumor. This is one of the characteristics of colon cancer.

2. Abdominal masses: generally irregular in shape, hard in texture, and nodular in surface. Transverse colon and sigmoid colon cancers have a certain degree of mobility and mild tenderness in the early stage. If ascending and descending colon cancers have penetrated the intestinal wall and adhered to the surrounding organs, chronic perforation to form abscesses or pierced through adjacent organs to form internal fistulas, the masses are mostly fixed, with unclear edges and obvious tenderness.

3. Changes in bowel habits and stool characteristics: This is the result of ulcers and secondary infections caused by tumor necrosis. Bowel habits change due to toxins stimulating the colon, with an increase or decrease in bowel movements, and sometimes diarrhea and constipation alternating. There may be abdominal cramps before defecation, which are relieved after defecation. If the tumor is located lower or in the rectum, there may be symptoms of rectal irritation such as anal pain, difficulty in defecation, or tenesmus. The stool is often unformed and mixed with mucus, pus, and blood. Sometimes it contains a large amount of blood and is often misdiagnosed as dysentery, enteritis, hemorrhoidal bleeding, etc. This is also a characteristic of colon cancer.

4. Symptoms of anemia and chronic toxin absorption: The necrosis of the tumor surface forms ulcers, which may cause continuous small amounts of bleeding. The blood mixed with feces is not easy to attract the patient's attention. However, anemia, emaciation, weakness and weight loss may occur due to chronic blood loss, toxin absorption and malnutrition. Late-stage patients have edema, hepatomegaly, ascites, hypoproteinemia, cachexia and other phenomena. If the tumor penetrates the stomach or bladder to form an internal fistula, corresponding symptoms may also occur.

The above is an introduction to the characteristics of colon cancer. I hope the above content can be helpful to you. If you have any questions about colon cancer, you can contact our online experts and they will give you detailed answers.

For more information, please visit the colon cancer special topic at http://www..com.cn/zhongliu/jca/ or consult an expert for free. The expert will then give a detailed answer based on the patient's specific situation.