Colorectal Cancer Awareness

It seems I write a lot about cancer awareness on my blog. My life has seen a lot of tragedy because of cancer. One of my first friends at the age of 6 died of leukemia, my cousin also had leukemia, I have had aunts and other adults to have cancer either change their lives or take them away as well. My own mother in law suffered, battled and eventually lost the battle to colon cancer. So today I want to bring a bit of awareness to colorectal cancer. 

Colorectal cancer is a cancer that starts in the colon or the rectum. Other names from this type of cancer can be colon cancer or rectal cancer. It all depends on where the cancer started. When cancer cells start growing out of control is when and where Cancer begins. Any part of the human body can become cancer and it may spread to other areas of the body as well 

Colorectal cancer often starts as a growth on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. These growths are known as polyps. Some polyps have the ability to change into cancer over time. Not all polyps will become cancer. Polyps normally take many years to turn into cancer and the chance of it doing so depends on the type of polyp it is. There are two main types of polys (1) adenomatous or adenomas these have the ability to change into cancer as they appear in the pre cancerous stage.  (2) hyperplastic polyps and inflammatory polyps these are the polyps that are more common but not pre cancerous. 

Polyps more likely to contain cancer include:

• the polyp is larger than 1 cm
• more than 2 polyps are found
• a polyp that is found to be dysplasia (pre cancerous) 

If cancer does form in a polyp it can grow into the wall of the colon or rectum. The wall of the colon and rectum are made up of many layers, cancer most often starts in the innermost layer and grows outward through the layers. Cancer cells can be carried away through blood vessels or lymph vessels. The cells can travel to lymph nodes or to other parts of the body. 

• read more about colorectal cancer here