Saturday, December 12, 2009

If colon cancer has just started ,can it get in limpnotes

If colon cancer has just started ,can it get in limpnotes ?
my sister had colon cancer which had just got started and they got it . check her limpnotes and it is in them , could it get in them that soon ? They say it is in stage 3. so could it have started in limmpnotes first ?
Cancer - 4 Answers
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1 :
do you mean "lymph nodes"? Usually all cancers start out benign in polyps. Get the polyp, get the cure.
2 :
To be honest, the important piece of information is where the cancer is at the time of diagnosis. It is that that predicts outcome. If the cancer is in the lymph nodes then it is likely to have spread from the original colon cancer to the nodes. It is not likely to have started in the lymph nodes (otherwise it would not be colon cancer, but lymphoma, which looks completely different under the microscope). Colon cancer typically spreads to nearby lymph nodes first, then proceeds to involve lymph nodes further away from the original tumour. If there is lymph node involvement the doctors will often recommend chemotherapy as well.
3 :
No. Colon cancer starts off as a polyp, it spreads to lymph nodes at a later stage. There are 5 stages of cancer, and they are as follows: - Stage 0 - when the polyp becomes cancerous, the cancer is a bunch of cells in the inner lining of the colon - Stage I - the cancer has spread beyond the innermost layer of the colon into the middle layers of the colon. - Stage II - the cancer has moved beyond the middle layers of the colon. - Stage III - this is when it has spread to the lymph nodes. The lymph nodes are outside the colon. It is considered stage III if it is found in at least 3 lymph nodes Stage IV - this is the most advanced stage. The cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes and other parts of the body.
4 :
You have good answers above. I'll add that colon cancers evolve over a number of years. It only seems sudden because you just found out about it. That is the trouble with many types of cancer. They grow for years undetected before they are large enough to show up on tests or cause any symptoms. A billion cancer cells is roughly the size of a marble - about 1 cm in diameter. A cancer goes through the majority of its cell divisions before it is 1 cm in size. In the process some microscopic bits - cells - may travel to local lymph nodes or to distant organs such as the liver or the lungs. That is why we try to treat people "systemically" with chemotherapy which are drugs that travel through the blood stream to all parts of the body where cancer cells may have traveled. You are not alone. Many people do not realize this. We have no scans or x-ray studies that can pick up cancers when they have only millions of cells. Only a directed biopsy with microscopic examination can detect microscopic cancers, and the trick there is to know where to look. Fighting cancers is not simple and certainly not perfect. There is still much guess work involved.

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