Bowel Cancer

Your specialist will want to ask you some detailed questions about your bowels. They will then want to do an examination of your abdomen and also your back passage. They may use a little camera called a sigmoidoscope to have a look into the rectum in the outpatient clinic. It is likely they will want to do further investigations such as a colonoscopy which is a flexible camera test, to examine the bowel.

If bowel cancer is suspected, at colonoscopy biopsies will be taken and the area might be marked with a little tattoo in the bowel to ensure the area is found more easily at any subsequent operation.

Following this it is likely the consultant will organise a CT scan of your chest, abdomen and pelvis. This is a detailed scan of your body to ensure there is no evidence of worrying areas which may represent a spread of the cancer to other parts of the body. If it is suspected that you have a rectal cancer, then an additional scan called an MRI will be used and this gives very valuable information  looking at the stage of the tumour and  planning any operation that may become necessary.

When all the results of your investigations are available we will arrange for you to come back to the outpatient clinic to discuss the results. Usually, this will be with a consultant and a specialist nurse present. The consultant will explain to you what treatment is recommended which often takes the form of surgery. You will have a detailed discussion about the type of surgery and how this will be performed.