This year alone, the disease will afflict 2,800 Tennessee, resulting in 1,200 deaths. The flip side is that colon cancer is also one of the most curable forms of cancer, when detected and treated early. The former governor of Tennessee, Ned McWherter, recently had an early colo-rectal cancer detected and removed before it could progress to a more serious malignancy. First, you need to understand the body's digestive system. The large intestine, or colon, is a part of your body's digestive system that serves an important function of processing and storing solid waste until it passes out of the body.
Colon cancer begins when small growths, called polyps, develop in the colon.
These benign polyps don't usually cause any pain, changes or symptoms to signal us of their presence. Essentially, under normal circumstances, you don't even know that hey are there. These benign growths, however, may eventually develop into a cancer - still rarely producing any notable symptoms that might signal a problem. One reason colo-rectal cancer is so deadly it can become very advanced and reach an untreatable stage before we're even aware of its existence. The key is to detect and remove these benign polyps before they can cause trouble.