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Cancer - General Information Cancer Will Soon be Cause of Death Number One In the year 2010 cancer will overtake cardiovascular diseases at the peak of the cause-of-death statistics. The incidence of cancerous illnesses is increasing dramatically worldwide. In the year 2010 they will be the main cause of death, according to a report issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), even before cardiovascular illnesses. This year an estimated twelve million cancerous illnesses will be newly diagnosed and seven million people will die due to malignant tumours. In the year 2030 cancer will be newly diagnosed by as many as 27 million people and will be the cause of death for 17 million, according to the forecast made by WHO. |
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| Intestinal Carcinoma - General Information The human intestines consist of various regions which differ in terms of their structures and their functions. In each of these regions the cells of the intestinal mucosa can become cancer cells and begin to propagate uncontrolled. The resulting tumours, if they are malignant, can spread throughout the entire body forming metastases. Various factors play a role in the genesis of intestinal carcinoma. Most cases of cancer of the bowels appear without any single cause being recognizable. Bad eating habits, an unhealthy lifestyle and chronic, inflammatory intestinal diseases can favour the development of intestinal carcinoma. Some forms of intestinal carcinoma are also hereditary. The probability of contacting the illness is about twice as high if a close relative has already had intestinal carcinoma. For other forms of intestinal carcinoma there appears to be a genetic predisposition. Persons with such a predisposition are more inclined to develop intestinal carcinoma than those without. Intestinal tumours grow slowly and typically make their presence felt at a late stage only. Complaints first tend to appear when the cancer is already widely spread. The healing chances depend essentially on the time of treatment: if intestinal carcinoma is treated in the initial stages, it can often be healed. The main indications of intestinal carcinoma are changes in stool habits, blood in the stool, loss of weight, anaemia and intestinal obstruction. At any rate, patients who have suffered from abdominal pains for weeks on end should consult a specialist for gastrointestinal illnesses, a gastro-enterologist, and have an enteroscopy carried out. Regular medical check-ups can help to detect intestinal carcinoma in time. An enteroscopy detects a tumour in 6 out of 10 cases of cancer. The health insurance funds accept the costs of an enteroscopy for all insured persons as from the age of 55, and even earlier for those with a family predisposition. In Germany intestinal carcinoma is the second-most-frequent type of cancer found in women, and the third-most-frequent found in men. Every year some 70,000 people are diagnosed as having the illness, and 30,000 die of it. Men are more often affected than women. Most intestinal tumours appear in the colon (almost 95%), while only 2-5% affect the very-much-longer small bowel. Genesis Intestinal carcinoma develops mostly from non-malignant tumours (adenomas or polyps). The genesis of intestinal carcinoma from an adenoma depends, amongst other things, from the size of the adenoma. Adenomas with a size of less than 1 cm have a very low degeneration risk of up to 5%. The larger the adenoma, the greater the likelihood of intestinal carcinoma. For an adenoma of more than 4 centimetres this is about 75%. Various genetic mutations bring about the development of the adenoma to a cancer. These changes often relate to genes that regulate cell growth or that repair the genes (DNA). These can cause the development from a non-malignant adenoma to a cancer in 1-2 years, instead of in 5-10 years. top  |
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