About Bowel Cancer/
Bowel cancer usually affects the large bowel, which is made up of the colon and rectum. That’s why you might also hear bowel cancer referred to as colorectal or colon cancer.
Most bowel cancers are thought to develop from a type of polyp called an adenoma – benign tumors that form in the lining of the bowel that can become malignant over time, often many years.
Not all polyps become cancerous, but studies have shown that the removal of polyps followed by regular surveillance can reduce the risk of developing bowel cancer. Polyps can be removed during a simple day procedure called a colonoscopy.
If cancer does develop, it is usually confined to the bowel for a relatively long period before spreading through the bowel wall to lymph nodes and other parts of the body.
The treatment for bowel cancer commonly involves surgery, with or without additional chemotherapy or radiation therapy. It depends on how developed the cancer is, with less developed cancers being far easier to treat.