Rectal cancer

Generality

Rectal cancer, or rectal cancer, is a malignant neoplasm of the large intestine, resulting from the uncontrolled proliferation of a cell in the rectal wall.

Several factors can affect the appearance of rectal cancer, including: an unhealthy diet, obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, intestinal polyps, family predisposition, some hereditary diseases and inflammatory bowel diseases.
The typical symptoms of rectal cancer consist of: rectal bleeding, blood in the stool, anemia, abdominal pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, constipation, a sense of incomplete emptying of the intestine after defecation and a sense of foreign body in the rectum.
An accurate diagnosis of rectal cancer is based on flexible sigmoidoscopy and tumor biopsy.
Possible treatments are: surgical therapy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and the so-called "targeted therapy".