Bowel Cancer Radiotherapy

As you may already know, different forms of cancer can affect the human body; some might develop cancer in the lungs, others in the liver and others in their bowels. Certainly, some might be more common than others, and others might be less curable. Bowel cancer is among the common types of cancer that affect thousands if not millions of patients around the world. However, there is bowel cancer radiotherapy treatment available in order to reduce the growth of the abnormal cells, and perhaps even remove the tumor once and for all. If the cancer goesin remission, the patient still has to be monitored in order to detect the cancer immediately in case it returns.

Bowl Cancer Symptoms

There are some types of cancer that don’t show any symptoms until it’s already too late to treat it or cure it. Fortunately, bowel cancer is not one of them because there is a series of symptoms that will be noticeable enough for you to realize that there is something wrong. A few of the possible bowel cancer symptoms are:

• Frequent abdominal pain or discomfort in the abdomen area
• Constant diarrhea
• Prolonged and/or frequent constipation
• Feeling that you can’t evacuate your bowels correctly
• Loss of appetite

During the very first phases of bowel cancer, it’s quite common to not experience any changes in your bowel moment. However, bowel cancer happens to be a bit more common in people over 50 years old, therefore it’s highly recommended to have screenings done periodically if you’re over that age. This way, if the condition is detected early, you will have to receive just a few bowel cancer radiotherapy sessions.

Risk Factors for Bowel Cancer

Sometimes there are factors that make our bodies more vulnerable to become sick or develop certain conditions. There are a series of risk factors that have been associated with the development of bowel cancer, such as:

• Age –the older you get, the more chances you have of developing bowel cancer
• Obesity
• Lack of exercise or physical activity
• Alcohol abuse
• Smoking (long term)
• Gender

Even though bowel cancer affects both males and females, there seems to be a slight higher risk on males. Consequently, a 50+ years of age male that smokes and drinks heavily is tripling his chances of developing bowel cancer.

Radiotherapy for Colorectal or Bowel Cancer

When a patient is diagnosed with bowel cancer or colorectal cancer, the oncologist will be the one to decide what type of radiotherapy or surgery should be scheduled. Keep in mind that some types of cancer can’t benefit from radiotherapy and that’s why surgery seems to be the next best option for them. Depending on the severity of your bowel cancer, you oncologist might have you receive partial bowel cancer radiotherapy to release the pain, and in addition he or she might have you have several sessions of chemotherapy.The main purpose of bowel cancer radiotherapy is toshrink the bowel tumor as much as they can, because this way, it will be a lot easier to remove.