Colon

The Function of the Colon

What's the colon? The colon is a vital part of your specific plumbing system. The tubular organ works about the clock to remove excess products from your body. As part of the digestive system, the colon works alongside organs similar as the stomach and small intestine to remove stool and maintain your fluid and electrolyte balance.

Can You Live Without a Colon?

Although it's an amazing organ, it's possible to live without a colon. People have helpings of their colon removed in surgery every day — surgical bowel resection is one of the treatment options for colon cancer. Still, all six feet of your colon, also called the large intestine, serve a purpose. The common of the nutrients you eat are absorbed in the small intestine well earlier the" food" reaches your colon. The colon’s most important job is to form the one-and-a-half quarts of fluid (the food you consumed mixed with digestive juices) into a firm stool for way out of the body.

The colon important reabsorb water and electrolytes to form a stool. This is why, when you're dehydrated, you can get constipated and your stool may come hard and delicate to pass. The colon is pulling further fluid from the stool for your body to use.

Anatomy of the Colon

The colon isn't labeled veritably creatively — utmost of the labels for the colon correspond to their anatomical location and flow of stool. Your large intestine is broken down into six sections including the cecum, thrusting colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon, and the rectum. The colon begins at the end of the small intestine, where it's called the cecum, and ends at the rectum. Cancers of the large intestine are casually appertained to as colon, rectal or colorectal cancer.

The cecum is anatomically located in the lower right sight of your abdomen roughly where your appendix is attached. The cecum is the widest part of your entire colon and is roughly 5 centimeters long, or a third as long as a pen. Between 15 and 20 percent of all colon cancers do in the cecum.

The thrusting colon heads up vertically from the cecum to the transverse colon. The juncture amongst the cecum and transverse colon is named the right colic flexure, or the hepatic flexure for its proximity to your liver (hepatic system). Anatomically, the thrusting colon is about 10 centimeters long and is seated on the right side of your abdomen.

The transverse colon connects your thrusting and descending colon, traveling lengthwise across your tummy. The transverse colon lies near to your stomach, liver, and gallbladder and is roughly 50 centimeters long.

The descending colon begins at the left colic flexure, also known as the splenic flexure for its proximity to the spleen. This portion of your colon lies in the left side of your abdomen, concerning your transverse colon to your sigmoid colon. The descending colon is roughly 10 centimeters long.

The sigmoid colon makes up the last 50 centimeters of the colon leading to the rectum and generally has an 'S' curve or shape to it. Roughly 20 to 25 percent of all colon cancers appear in the distal colon, which includes the descending and sigmoid colon.

The rectum is the ending portion of your great intestine important to the anus. The digestive process has fully finished by the time stool reaches the rectum, where it waits to be passed as a bowel movement. About 25 to 30 percent of cancers appear in this 15-centimeter piece of the large intestine.

A sinuous colon is one that's longer than normal. In this fairly rare condition, in order for this longer tube to fit in your abdomen, the colon ends up with redundant twists and turns.

Quick Look at a Colon Section

The colon is composed of four layers, every by an exact function. When a diagnosis of colon cancer is made, the pathologist will determine what layer cancer has reached (similar as the inmost or remotest layer) to help determine the staging of your cancer. The majority of colorectal cancers will start in the inmost layer, called the mucosa, and spread toward the remotest layer, or the serosa, of the colon over time if undressed. Starting at the inmost layer of the colon, the layers include the

• Mucosa: Divided into three sub-tissues, the mucosa surface is called the epithelium, where the most colon and rectal cancers appear. The mucosa make available a lubricant, which supports aid in the passage of stool through the colon.
• Sub mucosa: The coming layer of your colon, which is rich in blood vessels and nerves. The sub mucosa is a connective tissue layer connecting the mucosa to the coming muscle layer.
• Muscular is Propria: The third layer is composed of differing layers of influence fibers — a set that runs horizontally and a set that runs around the colon. Once cancers reach through this layer, there's an increased chance that they can metastasize to other parts of the body.
• Serosa: The remotest layer of your colon. When cancer feasts through the serosa it has left the colon and metastasized.