Rectal Cancer Treatment Without Surgery

Rectal Cancer Treatment Without Surgery

Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - What are some common signs and symptoms of rectal cancer? The most common sign and symptom of rectal cancer is rectal bleeding it is usually painless bleeding, and it can be either blood that appears on the toilet paper or in the toilet itself after a bowel movement. Other signs can be a pain, depending on where the tumor is diarrhea or constipation. The scary thing about rectal cancer is common there are no signs or symptoms and people can have this tumor growing in them for a while and not even know it. Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - That's why it's very important to adhere to the screening guidelines that have been established, to either prevent colon and rectal cancer by removing precancerous lesions when they occur in individuals or detect cancers early. So that everybody's chance of survival is better.

What are the screening recommendations for rectal cancer? Screening for rectal cancer is generally that people should undergo a regular physical exam with a digital exam, digital rectal exam, and looking for blood in the stool whilst the digital exam is done. Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - When people get to the age of 50, if they don't have any history of a colon or rectal cancer in their family, and if they don't have any history of other colonic diseases, like inflammatory bowel disease, they should undergo a screening colonoscopy. if they're not going to have a colonoscopy, they can have a sigmoidoscopy, which is looking at less of the colon in conjunction with radiology tests to look for either precancerous or cancerous conditions.

Now if people have a history of colon and rectal cancer in their family, then generally we recommend the screening start 10 years earlier at the age of 40. And if the family member that has colon and rectal cancer and your family have had that cancer very early, then we could potentially recommend screening even earlier than that. So, screening is very important because the oftentimes these cancers develop from precancerous lesions. And if they're detected early and removed then you won't develop cancer.

When should someone consider genetic testing? So people should consider genetic testing if they are what I would consider a young person. Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - And young we would define in someone under the age of 40, or people who have a significant family history of rectal cancer. Those people are individuals who have direct relatives, either a mother or father, sister, brother with rectal cancer.

If people have many relatives in their family that have rectal cancer, so uncles, aunts, cousins, those also are people who I think should consider some sort of testing. Nowadays almost all colorectal cancers undergo some form of genetic testing. That those tests that are done are looking at specific gene defects that we then use to define how we treat the cancers after surgery with chemotherapy. Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - So there are some defects that we have that will respond very well to chemotherapeutic agents. And so by defining those defects and on all individuals, we know whether or not they should get certain drugs.

What are the minimally invasive treatment options for rectal cancer? There actually are quite a few minimally invasive treatment options now for rectal cancer. There is the what we call laparoscopic approach, which uses camera and instruments that are placed through small incisions to free cancer up from its attachments. Free the rectum up from its attachments remove the portion of colon and rectum that has cancer and put everything back together that can be done in conjunction with new technology that allows us to operate through the anus freeing up the rectum in difficult places. That's something called a Tamis or Transanal Endoscopic Microsurgery (TEM). Or it can be done with the robot, which currently is also used to mobilize and remove the portions of the colon and the rectum, and put things back together.

Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - Technology is advancing at a very rapid pace. And so, every 2 or 3 years, we have a new piece of equipment that makes it easier for us to do this without making large incisions. And I think there are multiple options for treating these patients or patients with rectal cancer with smaller incisions. Now, smaller incisions are helpful, and we think that people recover quicker with them. But they don't necessarily reduce the complexity or the difficulty of the operation. So that's something to keep in mind.

Rectal Cancer Treatment Without Surgery

What are the advances in treatment to manage recurrent rectal cancer? I think the advances for treating recurrent rectal cancers are, again, multifactorial and involve multiple different teams. One of the advances is we just have better techniques of operating of maintaining patient's vital signs in the operating room so that we can do bigger procedures. If cancer hasn't spread to other places we can still perform large resections in the pelvis and maintain patients quality of life and indeed have low mortality rates with these procedures. A second advancement is in the use of intraoperative radiation therapy which over the last 25 years has really also gone through a tremendous improvement and has sort of revolutionized the care.

We have the capability here and there are certain centers in the United States to deliver the radiation to the patient during the operation, when the abdomen is open, thereby reducing the risk of radiation side effects to other structures. Finally, the way we reconstruct either the rectum, colon, or other structures such as the bladder, have advanced people's quality of life after these procedures. So all of those things together have improved the likelihood of being able to remove the recurrent rectal cancer, and have also improved their people's survival and quality of life after the procedure.

Why is it important to be treated by a multidisciplinary team and comprehensive cancer program? well, for rectal cancer, there have been dramatic improvements over the last 10 to 15 years and how we manage these tumors. And those improvements include advances in chemotherapy and radiation therapy. And indeed nowadays many rectal cancers, before we even think about doing surgery, are treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy together. Rectal cancer treatment without surgery - There are different forms of radiation therapy and there are different chemotherapeutic agents. It's really very important to have a team that looks at the entire picture with respect to the patient and cancer to determine what is the best therapy prior to surgery. What surgery should be done, and then how to care for the patient after the surgery is completed. We feel that that multidisciplinary approach really provides the highest quality care that you can achieve.

Rectal cancer treatment without surgery? There are some cancers that can be cured without surgery. However, the treatment that is available for this cancers is radiation and chemotherapy. Radiation and chemotherapy kill normal cells along with cancer cells and lead to long-term side effects. These side effects last lifelong and can be troublesome in most of the conditions. Surgery is a one-time procedure that will remove cancer and in many situations can be a curative treatment and the patient can live without chemotherapy or radiation. There are times when we use chemotherapy and radiation as in additional treatment for these cancers. There are some cancers like blood cancers where there is no other treatment other than chemotherapy. So, these cancers are only treated with chemotherapy for but for others surgery is the main and the only curative treatment that is available.