I have read many people write about how they or people they know have Stage 4 colon cancer and never had any symptoms. How is this possible? How could someone be completely healthy, have a perfect CBC,etc and yet have something that could potentially kill them in a short span?
Cancer - 2 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Unfortunately, this is the case of many types of cancer. Some cancers can grow and develop without causing symptoms or only cause very vague symptoms. Often times this occurs in areas where there is a lot of room for the tumor to grow without initially affecting the function of the surrounding normal structures. For example, the colon, particularly the cecum, is very large. A tumor can grow to a large size there without causing any symptoms. It would have to get to a massive size to cause obstruction of the digestive tract or to affect other nearby organs. As it grows without symptoms, it can eventually metastasize (spread to distant organs by way of the blood stream and/or lymphatic system). Stage 4 means that it has metastasized. A tumor does not need to be large to metastasize. Some types of cancer are more prone to spread than others. For example, melanoma (an aggressive form of skin cancer) metastasizes very readily and often people first present with symptoms from a distant metastasis and never even noticed the small primary tumor on the skin of their leg, back, or buttock. A CBC just looks at blood cells and counts them (red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, hematocrit). While some cancers can cause anemia many do not, and a lot of other things can cause anemia. Some cancers can cause changes in white blood cells (such as leukemia) but many do not. In other words, the CBC would not detect most types of cancer. A colonoscopy on the other hand would be able to demonstrate the colon tumor rather easily.
2 :
In most cases, there are symptoms, especially with men, who don't want to whine or appear wimpy about it. And women can sometimes assume it's related to aging or some sort of female issue. And even if there was not much pain, they didn't notice other possible indicators, like a change in stool size or stool habits, etc. This cancer isn't like ovarian or pancreatic, that produce vague symptoms that aren't fully identified until too late. I just think people ignore the signs or don't know what they mean. Also, a CBC would generally not catch colon cancer.
Read more discussions :
