Is early colorectal cancer contagious?

A question that colorectal cancer patients and their families are very concerned about is whether colorectal cancer is contagious? Is it hereditary? Especially some parents with children at home are very worried about transmitting or passing the disease to their children.

In fact, colorectal cancer is a disease related to gene mutation and is definitely not contagious. Therefore, even if an elderly person suffers from colorectal cancer, there is no need to isolate him or her from their family. They can still eat at the same table and live with their children and grandchildren.

In addition, colorectal cancer itself is not a hereditary disease, but it has a certain degree of heredity. That is to say, if an elderly person in the family suffers from colorectal cancer, it does not mean that the children will definitely get cancer, but under the same living environment, they are more likely to get cancer than other people. Studies have shown that if a colorectal cancer patient is found in a family, the probability of colorectal cancer in his blood-related relatives (parents, children, brothers and sisters) is significantly increased, and the incidence of colorectal cancer is about 2-3 times that of the general population. If there are two or more close relatives (parents or brothers and sisters) in the family who suffer from colorectal cancer, the risk of colorectal cancer is higher. Especially for young colorectal cancer patients, it is more closely related to genetic factors, and his immediate family members have a higher incidence of colorectal cancer. Therefore, relatives of colorectal cancer patients should undergo colonoscopy as soon as possible to detect colorectal cancer as early as possible and treat it as early as possible.

However, colorectal cancer is not particularly hereditary. In other words, it is not like some hereditary diseases, where if the parents are sick, the children will definitely get it. Because the occurrence of colorectal cancer is the result of the dual effects of environmental factors and genetic factors, even if two people have exactly the same genetic background, if they are exposed to different environments, then their probability of developing colorectal cancer will also be different. Therefore, the children of colorectal cancer patients are not 100% likely to get colorectal cancer.

Most colorectal cancers are sporadic, but about 10 to 15 percent of colorectal cancers have a genetic background, of which familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) accounts for about 1 to 2 percent, hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) accounts for about 2 to 7 percent, and others include Peutz-Jeghers disease (PJS) and juvenile polyposis. For this group of people, colonoscopy must be performed as early as possible and reviewed regularly so that timely treatment can be carried out in the early stages of development.