Can intestinal polyp become cancerous? Let's learn how polyps can go bad.

Intestinal polyps are growths that grow on the surface of the intestinal mucosa.

Here we are mainly talking about polyps in the large intestine. Before they become polyps, they are an ordinary piece of normal intestinal mucosa in the large intestine (the colorectal).

Absorb water and electrolytes for the body every day, and ward off harmful substances such as bacteria in the gut.

Normal intestinal epithelium requires constant replacement.

The old generation of intestinal mucosal epithelial cells will be shed and excreted with feces, and replaced by new intestinal epithelial cells to maintain the dynamic balance of the intestinal mucosa between the old and the new.

In this process, the gene expression of some cells may be changed due to genetics, bad living habits, chronic inflammatory stimulation, exposure to harmful substances and other reasons, resulting in the imbalance of mucosal epithelial cell overgrowth.

In order to obtain enough space and nutrition, on the one hand, the overgrown epithelial cells expand outward to the mucosa, and on the other hand, new blood vessels are formed constantly, thus becoming a "meatball" with rich blood supply protruding outside the intestinal mucosal plane, namely, we call "polyps".

Sometimes they break and bleed from friction, and sometimes they develop secondary infections and mucus in the stool.

With the gradual development of polyps, the new cells will show more and more obvious heterogeneity, and appear atypical hyperplasia with stronger growth ability, and finally malignant transformation, which is called carcinoma in situ.

After the malignant transformation, the cells obtained different degrees of enhanced proliferation and survival ability and invasiveness, which may eventually protrude out of the intestinal lumen to form a large local mass, may also spread along the intestinal wall annular and longitudinal, or invade deep into the intestinal wall and become invasive cancer.

When the blood and lymphatic tract is invaded, that is, with the blood and lymph fluid may spread throughout the body, forming metastasis.

Answer the headline question, can intestinal polyps become cancerous?

Polyps have many pathological types, and the above polyp deterioration process is a microcosm of the classic adenomatous polyp canceration, which is the most common type of polyp and the most prone to canceration.

In addition, there are inflammatory polyps, hamartomatous polyps, hyperplastic polyps and so on, inflammatory polyps and hyperplastic polyps are very low risk of cancer.

In addition, the susceptibility to cancer is also related to the size, appearance, genetic background and growth rate of polyps at the time of discovery.

The polyps with small volume and pedicle are mostly benign, and the polyps with wide pedicle are easy to become cancerous.

Polyps that grow fast and are genetically predisposed to become cancerous.

The more polyps there are, the higher the risk of cancer.