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Hi, this is Dr. David Cathcart. I'm from Heartland Regional Medical Center, in St. Joseph, Missouri,
and we're going to talk about colon cancer. Colon cancer, of course the colon is part
of a tube that starts at our mouth. It becomes the esophagus, attaches to our stomach, and
then starts the small intestine, and there's a number of feet of small intestine, then
a, then the large intestine. The those are call, usually the large intestines we'll refer
to as the colon, and colon cancer most typically will will occur in the large intestine somewhere.
The large intestine attaches to the small intestine. It starts on the right side of
our body, comes up, across, and then down, and it hooks to the *** and and out, so
that's how we expel, well out. So colon cancer then like other cancers forms when a group
of cells that become misguided become programmed to do something they're not, start growing
very rapidly, and they cause a mass. Now, the interesting thing about colon cancer is
that these, because the colon has so many blood vessels in it as it, these blood vessels
attempt to extract nutrients from the from the food that's progressing through the colon
the the cancer cells disrupt those blood vessels and frequently will cause bleeding. As bleeding
then comes out the *** it may appear red if the bleeding is down close to the ***,
or if it's higher up where the blood gets digested it'll turn more black, and so the
stool may look very dark and black which is oftentimes referred to as melena stools. So,
colon cancer then grows in those areas. It can obstruct the colon or it can cause bleeding.
Sometimes it may present as anemia. You may just feel tired or maybe you're noticing black,
tarry looking stools, or you're noticing blood in your ***. Any of those things are cause
for a trip to the doctor's office to check to make sure you don't have colon cancer.
This is Dr. David Cathcart.