Surgery only??

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Hi everyone.

Just wondering if anyone had surgery only for their colorectal cancer and been NED a few years out?

I was diagnosed with stage 1, T1 but feeling very down and overwhelmed and scared of spread due to no treatment. 

  • Hi Leighsp.

    The good news is that your stage 1 T1 which means that the tumour was caught early and not broken through bowel wall. So no other treatment is required.

    Even at stage 2 most won't need further treatment.

    You may find this publication from Bowel Cancer UK helpful to set the scene and explain pathways more:

    bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/.../YourPathway_BowelCancerUK.pdf

  • Hi there

    My tumour was 10cm or 4inches which was a huge. I was stage 2 no chemo or radiotherapy. 
    I had clear margins 27 nodes all clear so mine wasn’t spreading. 
    I celebrated that I had finished knowing that I was having monitoring and enjoying the freedom 

    If your concerned you could phone your team for advice and find out what monitoring you will have as you are very young 

    best wishes 

    Ann
     ‍Art

  • Hi Leigh, I think everyone worries about their cancer returning after finishing treatment.  The good news for you is that for a T1 tumour with no spread to lymph nodes the probability that the cancer will return really is very small. Additional treatment for a T1N0 tumour does not reduce this probability any further, and it does have serious side effects, so it doesn’t make sense to have any further treatment now.  

    I don’t know if it will be the same for you, but for me, worries about a reoccurrence have become less dominant over time   I still worry, but not nearly so much as I did just after treatment  I hope that will be the same for you