Colon Cancer Prognosis Stage 4

Published on Mar 26 2010, in the categories: Stages of disease

Colon cancer has five stages, which are established regarding the evolution of the disease. In stages 0, 1 and 2 the cancer has not left the colon region, while in the last two stages, stage 3 and stage 4, the disease has spread to other areas of the body, like nearby organs in stage 3 and other organs that are more far from the colon in stage 4.

As early as discovered, colon cancer is easier to treat. The stage 4 of the disease is the most advanced one and so the most difficult to cure. In this stage, the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes and other parts of the body, mostly to the liver and the lungs. After the cancer has reached the mucosa, submucosa and the serosa, the muscle layers, it hits blood vessels and lymph nodes, though which it can spread to the whole body and develops tumors on the liver or the lungs.

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Colon cancer prognoses for stage 4 are the worst because treatment in some cases can not include surgical intervention. However, some cases may require surgery. The affect part of the colon is removed through surgery and the healthy one is reattached back. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy can also be administrated depending on the patient general heath, his response to the treatment and the drugs that are taken by the patients’ effects. If the cancer has created metastases on the liver, ovaries, stomach or lungs, another surgical intervention on those areas may be required.

Colon cancer prognoses for stage 4 are influenced by many factors. The tumor exact location and the parts of the body where it has spread are just two of them. Because the cancer is discovered when it is so advanced the life expectancy on colon cancer stage 4 patients are the lowest ones. About 8 to 15 percent of the people with stage 4 colon cancer are still alive five years after their diagnosis. It depends on the treatment and the patients’ body resistance for it to redraw.

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Anyway, colon cancer prognosis looks better in American then in Europe. The explication to this fact may be that the quality of care is better in the Unites States, and the screening programs are sustaining the cancer discovery in the earliest stages. The five-year survival for colon cancer in America is 62 percent while in Europe it is only 43 percent. Even if colon cancer stage 4 prognoses are the worst, it does not mean that in the most advanced stage the disease can not be cured at all. It is just that it is more difficult to cure and that is way, in the majority of cases, it brings the patients death.
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