What is the Treatment of Colon Cancer?
As with all conditions in medicine, adequate treatment of colon cancer depends first on adequate diagnosis. Patients presenting to their internist for complaints of rectal bleeding or found on routine physical to have blood in the stool, will generally be sent for evaluation by colonoscopy. Any polyps or masses within the colon will undergo biopsy at that time. Small polyps within the colon may be treated completely adequately at the time of colonoscopy. The caveat to this is that if a small focus of cancer is found in the stalk of a polyp, additional surgery may be necessary to assure adequate margins around the area of cancer. Larger benign tumors of the colon may be treated by colonoscopy with excision as well, though these may require multiple sessions to completely excise the mass. If cancer is encountered in any of the tissue fragments removed, formal colon surgery is indicated. If a diagnosis of colon cancer is made upon colonoscopy with biopsy, patients will generally be referr
