What Symptoms Are Associated With Colorectal Cancer?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Fola May
In this program:
Does colorectal cancer always have symptoms, and what are the symptoms? Dr. Fola May from UCLA Health shares insight about the likelihood of symptoms, symptoms that patients might experience, and when it's vital to seek medical care.
Transcript
Broderick Rodell:
What are some of the noted symptoms associated with colorectal cancer diagnosis?
Dr. Fola May:
For the most part, and unfortunately, colorectal cancer can be asymptomatic, meaning that many people have no symptoms at all, and I think this is what's so challenging about this disease, is being someone who's taken care of colorectal cancer for years and years now, is that so many people present with very advanced disease, and they haven't found out until very late in their disease stage that they had cancer because they didn't have any of those early signs. For people who do have early signs, the early signs that we see are usually changes in the stool, and that can include red blood in the stool or even black-looking stool, which is also another sign of blood in the stool. Some individuals will have a change in the shape of the stool, so what we call as pencil-shaped stools or when the stool comes out very thin, almost the shape and size of a pencil, and that might be a sign of a colorectal cancer as well. And then other symptoms that some people might have are abdominal pain and cramping that's new, new constipation or new diarrhea out of the blue. Those are signs that can sometimes be concerning for colorectal cancer. And then when it's very, very advanced, people will have poor appetite, weight loss. And that's, unfortunately, when the disease is actually often spread beyond the wall of the colon. So this is a critical question, I'm glad you asked it because these symptoms are important to recognize. But as you can see, some of these symptoms are non-specific, I mean abdominal pain and most people deal with that every now and then, so we really have to be in tune to our bodies. And when something like that is lasting for more than a week or two are very severe, we need to get medical attention.
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