Tumor biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and targeted therapy | Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy
'Don't Be Like Me': Bowel Cancer Signs Woman Wished She Hadn't Ignored
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Woman Who Was Diagnosed With Stage 3 Colon Cancer Reveals The 5 Signs She Ignored
There are five signs that could indicate you could have colon cancer according to a woman who was diagnosed with it.
At the age of 44, TikToker Cherl was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer in 2012, but following a lengthy fight, she was given the all clear and has been raising awareness of the deadly disease ever since.
Cherl has shared the five signs she had cancer that she ignored.
Cherl has taken to TikTok to warn users of the dangers of ignoring signs that you could have cancer (TikTok/just.Cherl) Drastic bowel movements"I would go three to four days without having a bowel movement and then diarrhea. This was in the early stages when if I had gone to the doctor and they did a colonoscopy, they might have seen the pre-cancerous polyps," she explained.
While being constipated shouldn't worry you, if it becomes more frequent then it could be a sign of cancer.
But for Cherl, she was experiencing these problems for a number of years before her diagnosis completely unaware she had cancer.
Feeling faint from chest pain"All of my blood was going to my tumors," she told her viewers, as she described suffering from chest pain and becoming dizzy.
But when she was taking part in exercise that would raise her heart rate, she'd feel it on her chest once again. Adding: "It felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. And anytime I would stand up, I would feel faint."
Stomach achesIf you're thinking of what would be a sign of colon cancer then stomach aches would top the list, although they're so common it's rare that the cause is cancer.
"Every time I ate something, I would get sick. My stomach would just hurt. It came to the point that I became an introvert because I couldn't go out," Cherl explained.
"I couldn't do that because who knows when I would have to excuse myself and go to the bathroom. If you have a stomachache after two out of three meals, there's something wrong."
Iron levels were lowTwo decades before she discovered she had cancer, she tried to donate blood with Red Cross but they turned her away because her iron levels were too low.
"Iron deficiency anemia is the most common extraintestinal symptom in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC)," writes Leonidas Chardalias, Ioannis Papaconstantinou, Antonios Gklavas, Marianna Politou and Theodosios Theodosopoulos - authors of a 2023 study into iron deficiency anemia in colorectal cancer patients.
Cherl was turned away from donating blood with Red Cross due to her having low iron in her body (Getty stock)"Inflammation associated with malignancy leads to functional iron deficiency via the hepcidin pathway, whereas chronic blood loss causes absolute iron deficiency and depletion of iron stores."
Blood in your poo"I just thought it was normal, and then later on, when the cancer progressed, the blood was really dark, almost black. I was thinking the whole time that I had an ulcer," Cherl said after sharing that she suffered from hemorrhoids earlier in life.
If you've been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.
Reduced Follow-Up Frequency Safe After Colorectal Cancer Surgery
More frequent follow-up after curative surgery did not significantly reduce 10-year mortality rates in patients with stage II and stage III colorectal cancer.
More frequent follow-up after curative surgery did not significantly reduce 10-year mortality rates in patients with stage II and stage III colorectal cancer, according to a study published online in JAMA Network Open.
The finding stemmed from a posttrial prespecified secondary analysis of the COLOFOL randomized clinical trial. The original study investigated 5-year mortality rates with high- versus low-frequency follow-up.
"Our findings extend data from the initial trial, which did not reveal a significant reduction in 5-year overall or colorectal cancer-specific mortality," reported corresponding author Henrik Toft Sørensen, MD, PhD, DMSc, DSc, and study coauthors.
The secondary analysis, with an extended decade-long follow-up, included 2456 patients with stage II or III colorectal cancer in Sweden and Denmark. Researchers used population-based health registries to investigate 10-year survival outcomes for 1227 patients who received follow-up testing with computed tomography (CT) scans and serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) screening on 5 occasions (at 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months after surgery) and compared them with outcomes for 1229 patients who received the same follow-up testing but on just 2 occasions (at 12 and 36 months after surgery).
"We hypothesized that high-frequency follow-up screening with CT scan and CEA screening with a focus on the participants who had potentially been treated for recurrence would decrease the 10-year overall and colorectal cancer-specific mortality after curative surgery," researchers wrote.
The extended analysis, however, identified no significant decrease in mortality with more intensive follow-up screening. According to the study, patients who received high-frequency screening had a 10-year overall mortality rate of 27.1%. In patients with low-frequency screening, overall mortality was 28.4%. The difference in risk was 1.3%.
Colorectal cancer-specific mortality, meanwhile, was 15.6% at 10 years for the high-frequency group compared with 16.0% for the low-frequency group. The risk difference in colorectal cancer-specific mortality was 0.4% between the groups.
"The low-frequency follow-up regimen used in our trial is less intense than recommended in the guidelines provided by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Society of Clinical Oncology," researchers wrote.
They advised that the study's findings should be considered evidence for updating existing clinical guidelines.
Tumor biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and targeted therapy | Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy
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