With colorectal cancer rates rising among young people, it’s important to know the signs that may indicate colon cancer.
About 150,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with colorectal cancer, which includes cancers of the colon and rectum, according to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. It’s a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.
Dr. Waqqas Tai, a cancer specialist based in Brooklyn, said you should visit a doctor if you have pencil-thin stools, rectal bleeding, anemia (particularly men), severe constipation or diarrhea and/or unexplained weight loss, fevers and night sweats.
“Please go see your primary care doctor and get your routine colonoscopy,” Tai said on TikTok last month. “They’re extremely easy to do and they can save your life.”
The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends adults 45 to 75 get screened for colorectal cancer. People outside that range may need to be screened if they have risk factors such as a family history of colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease or worrisome symptoms.
Pencil-thin stools
Slender scat may mean a tumor is in your colon, Tai explained.
Dr. Michael Cecchini, co-director of the colorectal program at the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers and medical oncologist at Yale Cancer Center, recently told HuffPost that narrow poop tends to occur when tumors are near the end of the colon or lining the inside of it.
Cecchini called the symptom “highly concerning.”
Blood in the toilet
“If there’s ever blood in the toilet, that’s never a good sign,” Tai said. “Go get worked up. You can’t just assume it’s a hemorrhoid.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, rectal bleeding is a symptom of conditions such as hemorrhoids, anal fissures, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, colon polyps and colorectal cancer.
“Blood in your stool can be a life-threatening emergency, and we want to address it,” Dr. Terry Simpson, a board-certified general surgeon based in California, told his 1 million TikTok followers in an August video. “It may be nothing, but it may be something, and it’s not worth betting your life for.”
Anemia
Anemia, when red blood cell counts are low, may reveal that a tumor is bleeding into your digestive tract.
Anemia is present in 30% to 75% of colorectal cancer patients, according to 2023 research.
“There is no healthy reason a man should be anemic,” Tai said. “That is the No.1 diagnosis that we look for. And for women, if you don’t have heavy periods, you also should not have a low hemoglobin, and so you also need a colonoscopy.”
Severe constipation and diarrhea
“If you’re alternating between severe constipation and severe diarrhea, while that might be a sign of any other gastrointestinal disorder, it is a major reason to get a colonoscopy to make sure you don’t have colon cancer,” Tai noted.
Unexplained weight loss, fevers, night sweats
“We call these B symptoms,” Tai shared. “If you’re waking up in the middle of the night sweating and your clothes are soaking wet, and you need to put a towel down, if you’re eating a ton and you’re still losing weight, if you’re spiking fevers randomly throughout the day, these are very common signs of cancer.”
