Bowel cancer is known as colorectal cancer, Dr. Jonathan Rhodes, a gastroenterologist in Great Britain, writes on the website Net Doctor. It begins with cells that line the bowel, and in most cases a majority of colon cancers take place in the large bowel. As the Mayo Clinic explains, doctors use three main types of treatments: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Newer treatments have also become available.
Surgical Techniques
The type of surgery depends on the stage of the cancer. Surgeons reserve early-stage surgery for patients whose bowel cancer is small and is inside a polyp. The doctor must be able to remove the polyp during a colonoscopy, the test a patient undergoes to detect colon cancer.
Invasive colon cancer--cancer that has spread from the polyp into or beyond the colon--requires a more extensive procedure known as a colectomy. The surgeon removes the area of the colon containing the cancer, along with a small portion of healthy tissue surrounding it to prevent the cancer from spreading or returning. The doctor usually removes surrounding lymph nodes, as well, testing them for cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. This is crucial, as the lymph nodes carry cancerous cells throughout the body. Should they test positive, the doctor determines the best course of treatment.
The goal for patients with advanced-stage bowel cancer is not to cure the cancer, but to do surgery that treats the symptoms, such as bleeding and pain, making the patient more comfortable. This is also known as palliative surgery.
In most cases, chemotherapy is done before and after surgery, improving the patient's long-term prognosis.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a method of treatment that employs drugs to destroy cancer cells that have spread through the body. In some cases the doctor will use this treatment before surgery to control the growth of the tumor, making its removal easier, as well as after to increase a patient's chances of survival. The Mayo Clinic says that a doctor recommends this treatment for patients whose cancer has spread beyond the wall of the colon, or for those whose cancer is in the lymph nodes.
Radiation
Radiation therapy is similar to an X-ray in that they both use high-energy beams. The difference between the two is that radiation therapy uses these beams to destroy cancerous cells remaining after surgery or before surgery to shrink a tumor. While rarely used for patients with early-stage cancer, it is a common treatment for those with rectal cancer. In some cases, radiation and chemotherapy are combined to increase treatment efficacy.
Vaccinations
The American Cancer Society says that a number of vaccinations are being studied to either treat or prevent colon cancer. The difference between these vaccinations and vaccines that prevent diseases, such as the flu, is that these boost the patient's immune system, enabling it to fight colon cancer more effectively. At present, these vaccines are available only through clinical trials.
