Colon Cancer – Post Op Complications

Transcript

There are some complications that do come with colon surgery. Every surgery comes with its own complications and your surgeon will discuss this with you, obviously before surgery. They’ll ask for informed consent, which is a sheet of paper that just details some of these risks, and just that you understand that these risks come with these surgeries. The most important risks we discuss are the bleeding risks and the infection risks. It is normal to have some bleeding following colon surgery, but excessive bleeding is something that you need to discuss with your surgeon. The other risks would be infectious in nature, and these would really show up with fevers, chills or elevated heart rates. And if that were the case, you would need to be evaluated for potential infections, which could be an abscess at your skin or within your abdomen, or there’s always the dreaded leak. This is a complication that your surgeon would discuss with you where the colon where it’s reconnected could actually have a small or a large leak. If that were the case, it could be just antibiotics, it could be an interventional radiology procedure, or it could be an emergency surgery. So these are all things that you really want to discuss with your surgeon if you encounter.