Surgery for colon Cancer

[bla_3x]

A liflong friend's mother just found that she had 2 large polyps in her Sigmoid. There is some inflamation of the colon wall in that area on CT. Now the surgeon met with her yesterday and said that he coun't get her in for at least 2-3 weeks to do a sigmoidectomy. Is this bad...to wait 2-3 weeks? Being just a first year I felt so bad when he called me and wanted so many answers that I couldn't give. Thanks!

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[doc05]

in most cases, 2-3 weeks is no big deal.

 

[Vincristine]

colon CA grows VERY slowly. hence why if your colonoscopy is negative, you don't need another one for 10 years.

 

[imtiaz]

have they biopsied it? i suppose right now it doesn't matter exactly what type of cancer it is but that'd help in terms of figuring out the prognosis, i think. either way, i agree with what was said above about 2-3 weeks being no big deal. hopefully these two polyps are all she has.

 

[Kalel]

I partially agree with the previous users. Chances are, a 2-3 week delay will have no effect on outcome; but I don't think that there have ever been any studies that have examined such small delays in treatment. A macroscopic delay in treatment (ie years) has been demonstrated to adversely affect the prognosis of most cancers, and I imagine that there is a small chance that the 2-3 week delay will adversely affect your friend's outcome, but I guess that the take-home message is that no one really knows. If it were my cancer, I'd want it out right away; but delays are just a fact of life in medicine. I wouldn't advise your friend to go looking for another surgeon just because of these 2-3 weeks. You can read the following websites if you are interested in learning more about colon cancer:
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic413.htm
http://www.vh.org/adult/patient/cancercenter/coloncancerfacts/

 

[bla_3x]

thank you all. His parents live in a smaller town. I think hat they did biopsy it, but the biopsy had to go to the nearest city to get read. It is good to know that this may not be that bad. The colonoscopy evidently did not show any gross area of malignancy...so that's good....or is that common?

 

[Blade28]

I can't really add anything more than what Kalel said. Great post!

But good luck to your friend's entire family. I wish them the best.