Diagnosing gastrointestinal cancer

Are you worried about unusual gastrointestinal symptoms such as rectal bleeding or frequent abdominal pain? Or, have you recently been diagnosed with a gastrointestinal cancer? If so, The Christ Hospital Health Network can help.

Our network of doctors includes gastroenterologists, surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and interventional radiologists. They work closely together—and with you and your referring doctor—to check your symptoms, determine whether you have a gastrointestinal cancer, and if so, develop a treatment plan.

State-of-the-art diagnostic tools

Gastroenterologists from The Christ Hospital Health Network use many tests to find (or rule out) cancer. These procedures include:

• Upper endoscopy - a test that lets doctors look inside your digestive tract with a tiny camera attached to a thin, flexible tube (endoscope).

• Colonoscopy - a test that lets doctors look inside your colon and rectum with a camera attached to a thin, flexible tube (colonoscope).

• Endoscopic ultrasound - a test that combines endoscopy and ultrasound. It's used to take high-quality pictures of the digestive tract. It is often paired with a test called needle biopsy [link to Health Library], which doctors use to take tissue samples.

• Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) - a test that lets doctors see inside the bile ducts. It is often used to diagnose bile duct, gallbladder and pancreas cancers.
  

Next steps

If you are diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer, your doctor will need to "stage" it (see how advanced it is).

Even if you were not diagnosed early, there is still hope. We offer the latest treatments, even for cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes or other parts of the body.