Being told one has colon cancer tends to raise dread in most of us. It can therefore feel quite reassuring for your doctor say that you simply have hemorrhoids. That there is no need to worry about the blood in your stool. Yet this reassurance ought to only come after the doctor has eliminated the chance of colon cancer (and other potentially dangerous gastrointestinal issues). Else, you may not find out that you have colon cancer until it is too late. Should a doctor conclude without testing considers that complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding by a patient are the result of hemorrhoids and it eventually is discovered that the patient had colon cancer all along, that doctor may not have met the standard of care and the patient may be able to pursue a lawsuit against that doctor.

Mere than 10 million men and women have hemorrhoids and another million new instances of hemorrhoids will likely arise this year as opposed to a little over the 100 thousand new incidents of colon cancer that will be identified this year. In addition, not all colon cancers bleed. When they do, the bleeding could be non-consistent. Also depending on the location of the cancer in the colon, the blood may not even be apparent in the stool. Perhaps it is in part because of the difference in the quantity of cases being identified that a number of physicians simply assume that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is due to hemorrhoids. This is gambling, pure and simple. A physician who reaches this conclusion is going to be right greater than ninety percent of the time. It appears sensible, doesn’t it? The concern, though, is that if the doctor is incorrect in this diagnosis, the patient might not find out he or she has colon cancer until it has reached a late stage, maybe to where treatment is no longer effective.

In the event colon cancer is discovered before it metastasizes outside the colon, the patient’s 5 year survival rate will generally be above 80%. The 5 year survival rate is a statistical guage of the percentage of patients who survive the disease for at least 5 years after diagnosis. Treatment protocols for early stage colon cancer often requires just surgery so as to take out the cancerous growth and surrounding portions of the colon. Depending on variables such as the stage of the cancer and the patient’s medical history (including family medical history), age, and the individual's physical condition, chemotherapy may or may not be required.

For this reason physicians frequently recommend that a colonoscopy should be done right away if a patient has blood in the stool or rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy is a procedure whereby a flexible tube with a camera on the end is used to see the interior of the colon. If growths (polyps or tumors) are found, they can be removed (if sufficiently small) or sampled and checked for the existence of cancer (by biopsy). Colon cancer may effectively be ruled out as the reason for the blood only if a colonoscopy detects no cancer

But, if the cancer is diagnosed after it has spread past the colon and has reached the lymph nodes, the individual's five year survival rate will generally be approximately fifty three percent In addition to surgery to remove the tumor and adjacent areas of the colon treatment for this stage of colon cancer requires chemotherapy in an attempt to eliminate any cancer that might be left in the body. If the cancer reaches other organs such as the liver, lungs, or brain, the patient’s five year survival rate is cut down to near 8%. Now treatment may entail surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications. Treatment might no longer be helpful the moment the cancer is this advanced. When treatment ceases to be effective, colon cancer is fatal. This year, about 48,000 people will pass away in the U.S. from metastatic colon cancer.

As a result of diagnosing complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding as resulting from hemorrhoids without conducting the appropriate tests to eliminate the possibility of colon cancer, a doctor places the patient at risk of not learning that the patient colon cancer until it progresses to an advanced, possibly no longer treatable, stage. This may amount to a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may end in a medical malpractice lawsuit.