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When we talk about signs of colorectal cancer, we should know what the colon is. The colon is an important constituent of the digestive process in the human body. It has a very important role to play in the body. The body absorbs all the water, minerals and the nutrients. The colon helps to get rid of the waste in the excretory process. This waste is called the stool. The colon forms the main part of the intestine. It is approximately six feet long. The rectum and the anal canal are the last part of the intestine and they constitute the last six inches of the entire length.
Colon cancer sometimes may not have any symptoms. Thus it is better to get a health screening, at the age of 50 to facilitate, easy identification of colorectal cancer symptoms.
It is seen that the colorectal cancer symptoms is of two types:
- Local
- Systemic
Local Colorectal Cancer Symptoms
This kind of symptoms occurs in people who exhibit a problem where the symptoms affect their habits in the bathroom and the colon itself. The other common signs of colorectal cancer include:
- Changes in the bowel motions: The bowel motions could either more or less frequent than normal.
- Constipation: This happens when the person has to strain to pass bowels. There is a lot of difficulty to pass motions.
- Diarrhea: The person with an affected colon exhibits a lot of diarrhea. This is caused due to the infected colon.
- Intermittent constipation and diarrhea: AS the colorectal conditions increase, the constipation and the diarrhea, tend to get erratic and produce a dual effect on the person. The individual thus experience both.
- Tarry stools: sometime the stools are seen to be bright red, due to the infection which leads them to develop blood on the stools. This is also a typical colorectal cancer symptom.
- Pencil stools: These stools are thinner than the normal stools and one feels like the emptying the bowels but it doesn’t happen completely.
- Abdominal bloating: The middle part of the abdominal area experiences a bloated feeling with a lot of pain associated with gas and cramps and passing wind.
Systemic Colorectal Cancer Symptoms
The symptoms for this kind of cancer symptoms affect the entire body, and causes conditions like loss of weight. The symptoms of colorectal cancer are:
- Sudden weight loss: The individual loses weight without any reason. This kind of unintentional sudden weight loss is checked and tested and is regarded as the symptom for systemic colon cancer.
- Loss of appetite: The individual faces a lot of lack of appetite. The internal conditions make the person susceptible to colon cancer and thus affect the digestive process also. This causes a lack of appetite.
- Fatigue: The resultant effect of the systemic colon cancer is that the person feels tired for no reason. This unexplained tiredness is a common sign of colorectal cancer.
- Nausea or vomiting: The condition of the colon makes the digestive system weak and causes an upsurge of digestive juices. This results in a nauseatic feeling producing the effect of vomiting and nausea.
- Anemia: When there is any kind of infection in the body, it results in an immediate effect with the red blood cells. This causes low iron content and a low red blood cell count. This causes anemia. Thus reduced red blood cell counts are common signs of colorectal cancer.
- Jaundice: Often jaundice is a symptoms of systemic colon cancer. Its effects directly affect the colon. Thus signs of colorectal cancer indicate jaundice.
The signs of colorectal cancer are dependent on the place where the tumor is located in the bowel. It is to be known if the tumor has spread elsewhere in the body. This condition is called metastasis. The symptoms that are found are seen in other diseases too, thus it is difficult to pin point particular signs of colorectal cancer. The symptoms and signs of colon cancer are therefore divided into being local, constitutional or metastatic. Local symptoms are the symptoms of a particular area. Constitutional symptoms include symptoms affecting the whole body. Metastatic symptoms are caused due to spread of the disease from one organ to the other organs.
The local symptoms are found to occur near the anal region. Lower gastrointestinal blood loss, with blood in stools are symptoms of local colorectal cancer. Melena or black stools are found in the upper gastrointestinal tract when the disease is found where the large bowel begins.
Bleeding, resulting in anemia and therefore resultant fatigue and paleness is a classic constitutional symptoms of colorectal cancer.
