How Is Colon Cancer Diagnosed?

How Is Colon Cancer Diagnosed? (0:49)

A colonoscopy can usually determine if a patient has colon cancer. In this video, Daniel Labow, MD, an oncology surgeon at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, describes the symptoms that might show up before a colonoscopy is performed.

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The diagnosis is of course important to get as early as possible and so once people develop symptoms which we can talk about in the moment, how to get the diagnosis is very clear and that's what the colonoscopy. Symptoms that should alert patients other than just getting an appropriate screening.

If there's any blood in your stool, change in bowel habits that persists, unexplained weight loss, those are the sort of things that should alert you to talk to your doctor about potentially getting a colonoscopy or some investigation.