If You Have Cancer: Preventing And Treating Colorectal Cancer
Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School
If you have cancer
If a polyp or growth is found during a colonoscopy, the doctor will remove the polyp and send the tissue to a pathologist, who will examine it under a microscope. Your doctor should receive the results of the analysis about a week later. The report will indicate whether the cells are cancerous and, if so, it will identify the cancer by type. (The pathology report will not, however, indicate the cancer's stage.)
If cancer cells are identified, your gastroenterologist will refer you to a surgeon. The surgeon will do a physical exam and run some additional tests to find out more precisely where the cancer is and other details that influence which type of surgery and other therapies you'll need. The entire pretreatment evaluation is usually done during an office visit. If the doctor and patient agree, surgery can be done later the same day.
| Last updated: | April 09, 2009 |
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Medical content reviewed by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Harvard Health Publications, Copyright © 2007 by President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Used with permission of StayWell.
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