This handy, reassuring guide helps recently diagnosed patients answer pressing questions, such as How far advanced is the disease? What tests are involved? and What treatments will be recommended? and understand the often confusing and intimidating medical jargon. In addition, this fully updated second edition is a quick, reliable reference to the most current procedures and treatment options. Among these are the increasingly popular trend of using chemotherapy and radiation prior to surgery, targeted therapies involving newer drugs that limit their focus to the cancer cells, the use of laparoscopic surgery, and latest approaches in radiation therapy and chemotherapy drugs. This work also reviews symptoms and risk factors for colon cancer, how the disease may be prevented, and pros and cons of various treatments.