MANILA, Philippines—Cancer of the colon is “very treatable” if diagnosed early, a leading Filipino surgeon said Monday as a stunned nation tried to come to terms with the news that former President Corazon Aquino had contracted the disease.
If detected at Stage 1, or when the cancer is still confined to the lining of the bowel (the long muscular tube that runs from the end of the small intestine to the anus), the “five-year survival rate is approximately 95 percent,” according to Dr. Carlos Magsanoc.
In other words, “out of 100 patients at Stage 1 who underwent surgery, 95 would still be alive after five years,” said Magsanoc, the former chair of the Section of Colorectal Surgery at Makati Medical Center.
The survival rate is still an encouraging 80 percent for patients in Stage 2, or when the cancer has begun to “invade” the bowel walls, the doctor said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).
At Stage 3, which is marked by the appearance of lymph nodes (kulani) around the bowel, the five-year survival rate drops sharply to around 40 to 50 percent.
Stage 4 is when the cancer or tumor has spread to distant organs like the liver or lungs. The survival rate at this point falls to a “low” of 10 to 20 percent.
Magsanoc said three modes of cure—surgery, chemotherapy and radiation—were available for colon cancer patients.
Chemotherapy and radiation may be given before (“neoadjuvant”) or after (“adjuvant”) surgery.
Early signs
Symptoms usually appear when the cancer is already at Stage 2 and 3, which is why Magsanoc recommends regular physical examinations to detect and have the cancer treated ahead of the manifestations.
The early signs include “changes in bowel habits—[such as] if you used to move your bowels daily and now you’re either doing it 2 to 3 times a week (constipation) or 2 to 3 times a day (diarrhea),” Magsanoc said.
Other symptoms are “bleeding from the rectum” and “loss of appetite and weight.”
“Abdominal pains” provide alarming signs that the cancer has reached an “advanced stage.”
A person becomes susceptible to colon cancer generally upon reaching the age of 60, and “as you grow older, the incidence goes up,” the doctor said.
Among the different types of cancers, colon cancer is the sixth leading cause of death among Filipino men and women.
In women, it is the No. 10 killer compared to other cancers, and in men, it ranks No. 5, Magsanoc said.
Family history, etc.
In the United States, colon cancer has become the fourth leading cause of death among cancers afflicting both genders, he said.
“Nobody knows precisely what causes colon cancer, but we can cite various predisposing factors,” Magsanoc said.
These include having a “family history” of colon cancer cases through the generations, as well as “polyps in the colon” that went undetected and had developed into cancer.
A person’s diet, lifestyle and stress levels are usually mentioned among the causes, but Magsanoc explained that making such a “correlation” was still a matter of observation yet to be absolutely confirmed by scientific data.
The doctor nevertheless noted that among Asians, particularly in developing countries where high-fiber diets are the norm, the incidence of colon cancer was “lower” compared to the developed Western countries where meals usually consisted of low-fiber processed foods.
Magsanoc currently chairs the Section of Colorectal Surgery of the Asian Hospital & Medical Center in Alabang, Muntinlupa City.
He is a former chair of the Philippine General Hospital’s Department of Surgery, and a former president of the Philippine Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery.
