Colon Cancer
Patients with Crohn’s disease have an increased risk for development of colon cancer. While this risk is greater than that of the average population, it is nonetheless believed in some medical circles to be slightly smaller than that in patients with crohn’s counterpart, ulcerative colitis.
Statistically speaking, Crohn’s patients are estimated to be between ten and twenty times more likely to get colon cancer at some point in their lifetime than the general population.
Colon cancer in Crohn’s patients does not always appear in the areas of the bowel that are most damaged; in some cases, cancer develops in sections of bowel that were minimally affected by the disease prior to its appearance.