- anal bleeding
- hpv infection that causes genital warts
- pain, pressure or itching around the anus
- unusual discharge or bowel movements
- lumps or swelling around the anus or the groin
treatment
like many other cancers, anal cancer is usually treated with chemotherapy and radiation. if those don’t work, doctors may attempt surgery.
prognosis
again, like many other cancers, it’s highly treatable if it’s detected early. that happens in about half of all cases,
according to webmd
. squamous cell carcinoma, the most common type by far, has a better prognosis than the rarer kinds of cancers.
the size of the tumour makes a difference as well: tumours smaller than 2 cm generally have a good prognosis, while tumours bigger than 5 cm are much riskier.
recent canadians statistics aren’t available, but in the u.s. people with anal cancer have a five-year, relative survival rate of about 69 per cent after their diagnosis.
fighting stigma
while the stigma around this kind of cancer is real, there’s been a concerted effort to fight it. heading that initiative is “desperate housewives” actress marcia cross, who was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2017 and went into remission the next year.
“i wasn’t interested in becoming the anal cancer spokesperson. i wanted to move on with my career and my life,” cross told
coping
, a magazine for people living with cancer. “but as i was going through it, i read repeatedly about people who were ashamed, who were hiding, who were lying about their diagnosis. and on the other side, how doctors were not comfortable talking about it.”