In some situations colon cancers bleed. Under some circumstances, the blood may be visible in the stool. In cases where the cancer is near the rectum, the blood could even appear as bright red. Even when the blood cannot be seen, the bleeding may be detectable in other ways. As an example, the loss of blood may show up as anemia. Blood tests might show internal loss of blood that could be the result of cancer in the colon. Certain blood test levels below the normal range might reveal blood loss and iron deficiency anemia. If a patient has levels that are below normal levels for these tests doctors typically agree that there should be follow up to find out the cause of the blood loss, like the chance of cancer of the colon.
Look at the matter of a 64 year old man whose blood tests showed all of the above. The following year, the person's blood work found a deterioration of the patient's problem. Additionally, another test revealed the presence of blood in the patient's stool. Yet, doing no additional testing or referring the patient to a specialist the physician entered a diagnosis of hemorrhoids into the individual's chart. Approximately two years after that the individual was seen by another physician. Because of the patient's age this physician had him undergo a barium enema. The result: a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. The person passed away from the spread of the cancer within 3 years following his diagnosis. The individual's family filed a case against the doctor who ignored the patient's abnormally low blood test results and ignored the existence of blood in the man's stool. The law firm that handled the lawsuit reported a settlement in the case in the amount of $1,250,000
Blood tests are done for a reason. Abnormal test results suggest that there might be something wrong, perhaps critically wrong with the person and require follow up. At times follow up means repeating the blood test within a short period of time to see if the levels return to normal. However, if the levels deviate enough from normal levels or continue to worsen, physicians commonly concur that this increases the need to order proper other tests to find out the reason behind those levels. Physicians further generally concur that blood in the stool of an adult person calls for immediate attention to eliminate the possibility of colon cancer as the reason. A colonoscopy is normally ordered to look at the whole colon and either find or rule out the presence of any tumors.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting cancer cases. You can learn more about cases involving stage 4 colon cancer and colon cancer liver spread at the website
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