For most people, getting a diagnosis of colon cancer is a waiting game. Often, cancer is first seen on a colonoscopy, which could be either for routine screening or because you are having symptoms such as abdominal pain, change in stool shape, size, or frequency, or blood in the stool.
During a colonoscopy, any polyps or anything that looks like it might be a cancer will get biopsied, meaning a small piece of it will be sent off for further testing. This process might take about a week while a pathologist looks at the tissue under a microscope to determine whether there is cancer there.
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