Treatment for bowel cancer will depend on a number of things such as; where your cancer is located, the size of the tumour, if it has spread, your current fitness and general health as well as what your treatment preferences are.1
Some common therapies used to treat bowel cancer can include: 1
- Surgery – one of the most common treatment methods for bowel cancer and involves removing all or part of the affected bowel
- Radiation therapy – uses radiation to target cancer cells and destroy them
- Chemotherapy – uses specialist drugs that destroy cancer cells
- Cryosurgery – involves freezing and destroying cells that are abnormal
- Radiofrequency ablation – uses a probe which has electrodes that target and destroy cancer cells. Depending on the site, it can be done with both local and general anaesthetic
- Targeted therapies – aims to destroy only cancer cells, whilst leaving healthy cells intact