Symptoms
Symptoms of Bowel Cancer
Symptoms of bowel cancer can be very variable indeed and many cancers do not give any symptoms until quite advanced.
Symptoms can be divided up in to four main categories:
- None
- Change in Bowel Habit
- diarrhoea is more commonly associated with bowel cancer than constipation
- acute diarrhoea is not uncommon but symptoms persisting for more than 6 weeks warrant urgent investigation
- Rectal Bleeding (or passage of mucus or slime)
- bright red bleeding with anal symptoms are often minor anal conditions such as haemorrhoids or an anal fissure but many people with bowel cancer have 'sat on their symptoms' by thinking they only had something trivial
- dark red painless rectal bleeding with no anal symptomsshould be investigated urgently
- Non - specific symptoms
- anaemia
- weight loss
Signs are things that your doctor will look for that may indicate the need for urgent investigation. These include:
- Rectal mass felt on digital examination (a lubricated gloved finger is gently inserted in through the anus)
- Abdominal mass
- Visible lesion on rigid sigmoidoscopy (a straight telescope that looks at the rectum)
