How to treat colon cancer

  At present, the preferred treatment for colon cancer is radical surgery, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Radical colon cancer surgery covers the intestinal collaterals where the cancer is located and the entire colon mesentery, which means that the cancer itself is removed and the regional lymph nodes that may have metastasized are completely removed. Therefore, it is possible to cure colon cancer only after a thorough surgery. For patients with liver and lung metastases, the chance of treatment is not completely lost.  The new view is that if the metastatic lesions can be removed at the same time, they will be removed together with the lesions of colon cancer, and if the metastases cannot be removed, adjuvant chemotherapy will be administered first, and then resection will be performed after stabilization. In some patients with liver metastases, the metastases are confined to one lobe or one segment, and surgical resection is not only simple, but also the 5-year survival rate can reach 50%. The choice of surgical indication and surgeon’s experience are the key factors to decide the surgery.  Colon cancer gradually metastasizes to distant sites as it grows and develops, and 3/4 of patients already have metastases at the time of diagnosis, and half of those who can undergo radical surgical resection eventually develop distant metastases. Therefore, chemotherapy after radical surgery, i.e. adjuvant chemotherapy, is an important part of the comprehensive treatment of colon cancer. The mechanism of adjuvant chemotherapy is to control and reduce the residual lesions in the body after radical surgery with chemotherapy.  For unresectable tumors or distant metastases, local radiotherapy is also one of the common treatment methods for advanced colon cancer, which can shrink the tumor and improve the patient’s symptoms, and is often used in combination with other treatment options. At present, the more researched and more effective treatment is the combination of surgery and radiation, including preoperative radiation, intraoperative radiation, postoperative radiation and “sandwich” radiotherapy.