Word: colonic
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Surgery is still the front line of defense against colon cancer, and it is highly effective against the smaller tumors. (Better techniques mean that less than 2% of all colorectal-cancer patients now undergo a colostomy, in which the large intestine is rerouted to a hole in the abdomen and emptied into a bag. That's down from as many as 20% two decades ago.) Larger or more aggressive tumors usually require chemotherapy, which can be a problem. Whereas breast cancer, for example, often succumbs to any of eight to 10 powerful drugs, there has until recently been only...
...there's good news on the chemotherapy front. In 1998 the Food and Drug Administration approved Camptosar (also called CPT-11) for the treatment of advanced stages of colon cancer, and using Camptosar and 5-FU in combination seems to be most effective. It's a potent cocktail that not all patients can tolerate, but it has, in some small studies, doubled short-term survival rates...
...some of Mother Nature's own ideas to design new chemotherapy drugs. Scientists at Vion Pharmaceuticals of New Haven, Conn., are interested in co-opting a group of Salmonella bacteria that normally attack the intestines and cause dysentery. Salmonella, it happens, also happily infect all kinds of tumors, including colon cancer. By loading genetically crippled salmonella with one of the body's own cancer-fighting chemicals (a molecule called tumor necrosis factor), researchers at Vion hope to destroy or at least shrink a wide variety of cancers. Safety studies in humans are planned for later this year...
Your best bet to beat colon cancer today is to catch it early--and that means regular screening. It would help if there were just one screening test and some simple rules to follow about when to get it done, but that's not the case. So pay attention to the following guidelines...
First, a warning. If you experience any symptoms--especially bleeding from the rectum, unusual constipation, abdominal cramping or a narrowing of the feces--talk to your doctor immediately about taking a peek inside your colon...