Adenocarcinoma of the large bowel and hereditary colon cancer syndromes

Colon cancer develops, in most cases, from benign colon polyps. The progression from benign polyp to malignancy takes place slowly with the consensus that it takes about 10 years. If there are no polyps, there would be no colon cancer. Most benign polyps cause no symptoms to announce their presence and are discovered by routine colonoscopy, which should begin at age 50 (45 in African Americans). The colon develops adenomas through a number of molecular changes. The person with one adenoma has the possibility to develop more over the years so that follow-up surveillance examinations should be mandated.