Adjuvant Treatment for Stage 3 Colon Cancer

When you suffer from any form of cancer, your treatment options for colon cancer are often based on the stage of the disease. As the cancer advances, those treatment option do become more limited, but can still be effective in killing the cancerous cells. With stage III colon cancer, it's quite common to go through a form of adjuvant therapy after the primary form of treatment.

Resection

• Prior to the adjuvant therapy, most cases of stage III colon cancer will need a surgical procedure known as a resection. What this surgery entails is the removal of any diseased tissue within the large intestines. And depending on the severity of the metastasis, it could mean that only a portion of your colon is removed, or the entire organ. Once the procedure is completed, your surgeon connects the remaining healthy portions of your intestinal tract, so that proper digestion may take place.

  However, stage III colon cancer frequently finds other organs affected by the disease, mostly neighboring this portion of your intestinal tract. During the procedure, your doctor may need to remove portions of diseased tissue from other organs in your body, like your rectum, small intestines or reproductive glands. After your surgery, you'll then move into the adjuvant portion of your treatment.

Chemotherapy

• Of all the adjuvant forms of treatment for colon cancer, chemotherapy is by far the most common. It is used to rid the body of any remaining cancerous cells left or missed after the surgical resection or removal of diseased tissue. Oxaliplatin is one of the standard "anticancer" drugs used today, but your doctor may instead opt to use fluorouracil, leucovorin or a combination of these medications. What these drugs do is damage the genetic makeup of the abnormal cells, so they are no longer able to rapidly divide. This controls their growth and often causes the cancerous tissue to shrink and die.

Radiation Therapy

• Though not as common as chemotherapy, radiation therapy has also been used as a form of adjuvant care after surgical resection. This may come in the form of external beam radiation, where ionized energy is directed over the diseased area to shrink and kill any remaining abnormal cells, or internal radiation therapy, where a radioactive device is placed near (or even within) that tissue thought to contain cancerous cells.

Biological Therapy

• Depending on your health, age, severity of disease as well as other factors, you may be eligible to take part in a clinical trial that is used as a form of adjuvant cancer treatment. With colon cancer, it would come in the form of biological therapy, where antibodies or vaccines are administered to essentially boost your immune system so that it may help to fight the colon cancer.