Upon learning about colorectal cancer and becoming diagnosed with it, the first thing that probably popped out of your mind is your colon cancer survival rate. Your chances of surviving this cancer may depend upon a few variables including the stage of the cancer, the treatment plan, the extent of lifestyle modifications, your psychological acceptance of this disease and even at which part of the world you're living.

This article will focus on the percentage of your colon cancer survival rate in accordance to the stages of the cancer.

Brief Definition Colon Cancer

The term colon cancer is somewhat confused with colorectal cancer by many patients. However, the truth is that they're almost just the same - with the exception of which section or part of the colon is being affected. Previous debates have come up to an agreement that if the cancer doesn't involve the rectum or the rear portion of the colon then it must be called Colon Cancer, otherwise it's Colorectal Cancer. But then today, most of us (even professional physicians) call it the former regardless of which part of the colon is affected by the disease.

Stages of Colon Cancer

As of today, there are 5 stages of cancer. Some of these stages have sub-stages with them but let's not get too much into those for now. What we'll focus on is the things that we should be aware of about each stage and its accompanying colon cancer survival rate statistics.

Based of factual intestinal anatomy, your colonic tract is divided into 4 layers. From inner to outer, these layers are: Mucosa, Submucosa, Muscularis Externa and Adventitia or Serosa. Beyond these layers come the peritoneum, which is another external part after Adventitia but is no longer considered a part of the mucous membranes. The peritoneum is basically the lining of your intestinal tract, primarily protecting the walls of your colon and giving that smooth passage for food inside the intestine.

Stage 0
On stage 1, there are no outward signs or symptoms of this disease (asymptomatic). At this moment, your tumor is still confined to the mucosa hence symptoms are rare and may not even be felt by the patient. Colon cancer survival rate be up to 100% if the cancer is detected during this time. Needless to say, however, 99.60% of Colorectal patients are unlikely to know they have cancer at this stage.

Stage 1-2
Surviving for 5 years when the cancer is detected at these stages is about 80-90% on most patients. Stages 1-2 are where the cancer shows an evidence of proliferation and malignancy. At this stage, the cancer will extend towards the submucosa, muscularis propria, externa (stage 2a) up to the peritoneum (stage 2b).

Stage 3
Once the cancer goes beyond the peritoneum and spreads towards the lymph nodes, this marks stage 3 phase A of the cancer. With treatments and major lifestyle modifications, your colon cancer survival rate may range from 50-73%.

Stage 4
Stage 4 is the severe stage of most cancers - it is the time when metastasis has occurred and despite the consistency of care and treatment, the likelihood for a patient to survive for 5yrs following diagnosis is only around 28-42%. Metastasis means that your cancer has grown not just in your entire colon but has invaded the other vital parts of your body as well.

By Mert Ozge

Metastatic colon cancer is one of the leading causes of death from cancers and tumors in the USA and unfortunately the survival rate for those diagnosed with it is below 10%.

Colon cancer occurs when a tumor appears in the colon or in the rectum. The colon and the rectum together form the large intestine. First, only a tumor appears either in the colon or in the rectum, but if it is not treated then the tumor will spread, and in time it will affect other organs, such as the liver and the lungs, causing tumors to appear in them too. This is the final phase of colon cancer, when it has spread too much and there are too many cancerous cells in the body. It is also called stage IV colon cancer or metastatic colon cancer.

When doctors discover colon cancer they usually immediately recommend surgery to remove the part of the large intestine where the tumor has grown. After the surgery several tests are performed to see if the cancer has spread. If the result is positive and the cancerous cells are discovered in other distant places of the body then you will receive the stage IV colon cancer diagnosis.

You still have several treatment options after the metastatic colon cancer diagnose. The treatment is very influenced by how far has the metastatic colon cancer has spread. If it has only spread to a single organ different from the large intestine then the treatment has higher chances of success because it can be directed to that single site. The most common place where metastatic colon cancer spreads is the liver, and sometimes the lungs.

The problem is that at most patients colon cancer has spread to many other locations, and the treatment can not be directed to a single site. The best treatment option in this situation is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is done by injecting, directly in the blood, certain substances that have the ability of killing cancer cells. Chemotherapy has severe side effects like loss of hair, fatigue, loss of appetite, fever, and many more. The survival rate for chemotherapy-treated patients is not too high, but it increases each year and new techniques are continuously researched and developed.

We can only hope that the future will bring good news for those with metastatic colon cancer, and also remember that some manage to survive it and you could be among them.

Colon Cancer Risk Reduced by Vitamin Supplements
A very new study states that there is a correlation between smaller colon cancer rates and the use of vitamins A,E,C calcium, potassium and folic acid. The study has shown that long-term vitamins use could decrease the risk of colon cancer by 57 percent.

This study was made on an group made of over 500 women and men between the ages of 33 and 62 who were found having colon cancer. The patients were asked a lot of questions regarding the dosage, frequency, and duration of the vitamins they took. Two classifications were made: multivitamin packs token once a day and high concentration packs. The study showed that the majority of the patients who took the multivitamin packs took the high potency supplements too.

Most of the studies that predate this one agree that the risks of colon cancer are greatly reduced by using vitamin supplements but none of them was able to identify the specific components of the vitamins that are responsible for this. Antioxidant vitamin and folic acid rich vegetables and fruits are known for lowering the colon cancer risks, but yet again no specific components of these foods were identified.

An increase in the fruit and vegetable consumption rate was tried by several educations programs but none of them had a real success. It is recommended to eat at least five different types of these aliments but in the current society the intake of these foods decrease year by year. Society is being plagued by the fast food industry. These foods are very rich in carbohydrates that are very bad for the health, especialy for people that have a risk of developing colon cancer. Fast food alliments have a very low vitamin and protein content but it seems that the american society became addicted to them. Knowing the current society, the researchers of colon cancer recommend supplementing the diet with multivitamin packs rather then eating fruits and vegetables because they hope it will be more appealing to the general public.