What can happen if colon cancer is left untreated
Cancer is deadly. In many cases if cancer is found early it is treatable. If a patient leaves his or her colon cancer untreated a variety of things can happen to them. Dr. Mark Gimbel goes over what can happen without treatment in this video. Given enough time, colon cancer will progress to many other parts of the body. This is a scary proposition and can be deadly. Some level of treatment is always an option. Talk to your doctor about the best approach to your treatment.
Video Transcripts
Mark Gimbel, MD: There is a wide array of symptoms that can occur if colon cancer isn’t detected at an early stage. The most drastic is that the colon cancer actually grows so big that it spreads to other organs and once it spreads too much there is no treatment for it and ultimately it can kill you, so we like to treat colon cancer early to prevent the ultimate demise or that you can actually die. If left untreated, it can grow big, it can cause obstruction, it can cause bleeding, and it can cause pain. If it grows in the other organs or even to some nerves depending on where in the colon the tumor actually is, so yes if left untreated it can cause a lot of problems and you need to get it identify early.