New Delhi: With an objective to educate people around early detection of colorectal cancer, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals & Colorectal Cancer Research Foundation jointly hosted a panel discussion to address risk factors and health complications associated with colorectal cancer.
Addressing the incidence of colorectal cancer in India which is now reported to be about 7 per lacs of population, the conference discussed how factors like inclination towards lifestyle of the western world, habits like drinking and smoking, sedentary lifestyle and eventual obesity are contributing to this spike. Dr Deepak Govil, Senior Consultant, Department of Surgical Gastroenterology and GI Oncology along with Dr Vivek Tandon, Senior Consultant, Department of Surgical Gastroenterology and GI Oncology, also spoke about the increase in number of cases of colorectal cancer that are being reported at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, observed in patients between the age group of 35-65 years of age. These cases are largely in the advanced stage with aggressive form of cancer.
Dr Vivek Tandon, Senior Consultant, Department of Surgical Gastroenterology and GI Oncology in association with Dr Deepak Govil, Senior Consultant, Head of Department of Surgical Gastroenterology and GI Oncology, said, “In India, we see patients at a younger age presenting with colorectal cancer in comparison to the western world. While the number is low when compared with western world where it goes upto 30 to 40 per lacs of population. However, with India’s huge population of 1.4 billion people, in absolute numbers, this comes to be a fairly high figure. The most common symptoms are bleeding from rectum, especially when the cancer is located in the rectum and the distal part of the large intestine. However, other early warning signs that should not be ignored `include change in the bowel habit in a person who otherwise had a regular bowel habit such as increase in constipation, abdominal discomfort that persists for a prolonged period of time. Sometimes these patients may present with a complaint of weakness and on evaluation are found to have a low haemoglobin which is referred to as anaemia. This happens because of slow or occult loss of blood in the stool from the cancer which is located in the large intestine.”
The event also highlighted how treatment for colorectal cancer has advanced from being just a plain surgical treatment to a multidisciplinary treatment (MDT). The MDT board includes the medical gastroenterologist, medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, the radiologist and the pathologist. These are very specialized centers where all these groups form a multidisciplinary team to plan a customized treatment procedure according to the patient’s stage of the disease. Additionally, the use of robot assisted surgeries has helped clinicians also conduct a very meticulous dissection and clear all the cancer cells in depth with the help of a magnified field of the robot. It is a cutting edge development in the surgical treatment of colorectal cancer and with that, in the depth of the pelvis, with the technical advances of the robot, doctors are able to perform the whole procedure with much more precision and almost with a blood less field. With the help of these technologies and robotic surgeries, surgeons are able to preserve the normal passage in most of the patients, which is believed to be a very significant advancement.
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