Colon Cancer Forum - Colon Cancer Prognosis

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Q: Colon Cancer Prognosis

asked by: DoctorQuestion on January 18th, 2006

I have a relative who was diagnosed with colon cancer (could be stage 4). She had surgery and then six weeks later she started chemotherapy. Eight weeks after the surgery she went back to surgery to reverse the colostomy. During this procedure the doctor found that there was more cancer in the colon, so he removed an additional section of the colon. Is it possible that the cancer came back or spread because they did not start her on chemotherapy right away? Isn’t six weeks too long or is it standard?

Replies(1)

Dr. Nikola Gjuzelov , MD

replied on January 26th, 2006

Colon Cancer Answer A214

During Stage IV colon cancer, the cancer is so spread through a host that both surgery and chemotherapy are unable to cure the disease (palliative therapy). They can only slow down the process for a little while and enable colon passage and feces elimination (colon-stoma). It sounds as if the cancer didn’t make a return to the affected area but that it was already present. In my opinion, I don’t think that starting with chemotherapy earlier than 6 weeks could have made the prognosis better.

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