Early Symptoms Of Bowel Cancer

Usually in the early stages, there are no symptoms exhibited by bowel cancer. Due to lack of early symptoms of bowel cancer, the disease is often diagnosed at a late stage when the survivability of the patient is seriously compromised.

However, in some patients certain early symptoms of bowel cancer may be present which help to early diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Some of the early symptoms of bowel cancer are as follows:

Fatigue
Having no appetite
Anemia
Losing weight without any reason
Alterations in bowel movements, like constipation or diarrhea
Bloating
Flatulence
Passing blood in the stool

However, these symptoms do not necessarily mean that a person is suffering from bowel cancer. These are also symptoms for several other health issues like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

While bowel cancer is quite common, there are some people who are at a greater risk of getting this kind of malignancy. For instance, people aged 50 years and above are more susceptible to getting this kind of cancer. Also, men are more prone to bowel cancer compared to women. However, this does not mean that young people cannot get this type of cancer. They too can get it, but it usually develops due to inherited or genetic risk. Usually people less than 50 years can get either hereditary non polyposis colon cancer or familial adenomatous polyposis.

There are, however, many risk factors for cancer of the bowel and some of them are age, family history, obesity, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, getting exposed to radiation and certain gastro-intestinal conditions like Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis.

As early symptoms of bowel cancer are usually not present, it is best to go and have a test done annually if the disease is present in your family or you have a gastro-intestinal condition that puts you in the high risk category. Remember, early diagnosis of the malignancy is imperative to survivability.

More Articles :

End Stage Of Bowel Cancer

As per some studies, bowel cancer is second most common malignancy to be diagnosed in Americans. The malignant tumor in the bowel tends to grow slowly and hence, there are few symptoms in the initial stages of the disease. It is only when the disease reaches a later stage does it get diagnosed, but by then it is often too late for a remission. More..