What is colon and rectal cancer?

Colon cancer, or colorectal cancer, is understood to be the malignant degeneration of any of the layers of the intestinal wall, generally the epithelium of the mucosa (adenocarcinoma).

Although it may appear “de novo”, it generally presents itself on a degenerated polyp that, with time, has grown and evolved into its malignancy.

This is why the detection of these polyps (similar to a wart) is so important; small in size in their initial stages, they can be endoscopically extracted in a colonoscopy.