Colon cancer is one of the major diseases that claim thousands of lives every year in the USA. The reason has been attributed to American people’s fetish for low fiber-high cholesterol diet. Add to it the lack of physical movement and tensions of modern day living and you will see the reason why USA is one of the five countries where the occurrences of colon cancer are so common.
However, medical science is not sitting idle either and a number of sophisticated treatments are available to deal with the challenges of a bad colon that is the direct consequence of an unhealthy lifestyle. Of late three major types of treatments are most popular in the USA to deal with colon cancer. They are described below.
1. Surgical operation
When colon cancer is detected in an early stage, surgery proves to be extremely beneficial. In an early stage with the aid of a colonoscope, the cancerous cells are removed.
When the cancer is detected at an advanced stage, the surgical procedure that is performed is called resection. It is a process of removing the tumor by making an incision in the abdomen. After the removal of the tumor the colon is stitched back to restore the continuity of the large intestine.
2.Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is applied in cases of most advanced stages of colon cancer. Chemotherapy literally means killing of cancerous cells through chemical treatment. Two major chemicals that most physicians prefer to apply for the best result in colon cancer are fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin.
3. Radiation Therapy
Most people get startled to hear that radiation is used to treat any disease, as we generally associated with such monstrous things as nuclear bombs. But truth of the matter is that, we are constantly being exposed to some kind of radiation from simple objects of mundane life like mobile phones and even most innocent looking radios. We have to absorb some amount of radiation even as a price for living in this earth. Although radiation is not good for our health but our system somehow copes up in dealing with this. The same is true for the cancer patients who are administered radiation as a therapeutic procedure. In case of colon cancer, patients receive radiation mainly before surgery to make the things easier for the surgeon, as radiation reduces the size of the tumor. After the operation has been performed, radiation is applied to ensure that the tumor doe not come back again. Radiation becomes the only means of treatment to destroy cancerous cells, when it is not possible to remove the tumor by the means of surgery
Usually, radiation is charged externally and each application takes little time to finish…just a few minutes per day. The patient has to undergo the radiation therapy five days a week and the total span of treatment may last for many weeks.
Barring some exceptions, colon cancer is actually the result of unhygienic life style and following the good old adage, “prevention is better than cure”, you can prevent this curse ruining your life. A little care for what you eat, simple exercises, little efforts to keep the stress at bay and of course a regular colon cleansing regimen can help you to enjoy life in its fullest.
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