Colon Cancer

A colonoscopy uses a tube with a light and a small camera to let your doctor look at the inside of your entire colon. During a colonoscopy, your provider may take tissue samples or remove polyps to help diagnose cancer.

A sigmoidoscopy, including flexible sigmoidoscopy, uses a small tube and camera to view the inside of the colon and look for signs of cancer. While colonoscopy looks at the whole colon, sigmoidoscopy only looks at the bottom portion of the colon.

Fecal or stool testing allows you to take a sample—or multiple samples—of your stool at home and then send them to a lab to look for hidden blood or DNA that might signal cancer. The most common colon cancer stool tests include Guaiac-based fecal occult blood tests, fecal immunochemical tests and stool DNA tests.

Your doctor may order blood tests such as a complete blood count, comprehensive metabolic panel or CEA assay. These could help identify abnormal levels of cells or antigens in your blood or rule out other conditions.

Sometimes called a virtual colonoscopy, this procedure uses computed tomography (CT) to create images of your colon. These images are then reviewed to look for polyps or cancer in the colon.

To get a closer look at your colon and look for cancer, your doctor may use a barium enema. This moving X-ray, or fluoroscopy, procedure injects barium into the colon through the rectum to coat it and create images.

Surgery is a common treatment in all stages of colon cancer. The goal of surgery is to remove all or part of the cancerous cells. Many of our care locations offer advanced, minimally invasive options, including laparoscopy or robotic-assisted surgery, which use smaller incisions to help speed up recovery.  

Some surgical options include:

• Polypectomy, a procedure done through endoscopy (colonoscopy) to remove a cancerous polyp
• Colectomy, a surgery to remove a section of the colon affected by cancer or all of the colon
• Colectomy with colostomy, a procedure that removes all or part of the colon and connects the top of the colon to an opening in the abdomen and a bag to collect stool, which can be temporary or permanent

Chemotherapy drugs are sometimes used to treat colon cancer by shrinking or destroying cancer cells. This treatment option is often used with surgery and is most common in stage 3 and stage 4 colon cancer.

In some cases, radiation therapy is used to treat colon cancer. It destroys cancer with targeted high-energy rays. Radiation therapy is less common than chemotherapy or surgery in colon cancer and is often used in the later stages of the condition.

This type of treatment targets specific genes or proteins in cancer cells to prevent them from continuing to grow or multiply. One of the most common targeted therapies is monoclonal antibodies.

Immunotherapy is an innovative treatment for colon cancer that uses the body’s immune system to destroy cancer. Cells are often modified in the lab and then infused into the blood to help fight cancer better.