“Does cancer have any symptoms?”
I am a 47-year-old man, and in my family, there have been several cases of cancer, including for both my parents. Are there any symptoms to look out for that can help in early detection of the disease?
1 Answer
Unfortunately, symptoms are usually not present for most cancers in the early stages of disease. For this reason, much effort has gone into identifying screening tests for various cancers: mammograms, colonoscopies, imaging scans, PSA and other blood tests. Unusual bleeding might be one symptom that CAN occur relatively early for certain types of cancer (skin cancer, kidney cancer, gastro-intestinal cancers, but this is not very common. Periodic self-inspection, visually or by palpation can sometimes be useful in detecting early abnormalities that need to be more closely investigated, such as for cancers of the breast, testes, or skin.
