Polyps can be removed during a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy using a wire loop that cuts the stalk of the polyp and cauterises it to prevent bleeding. Many "defiant" polyps—large, flat, and otherwise laterally spreading adenomas—may be removed endoscopically by a technique called endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), which involves injection of fluid underneath the lesion to lift it and thus facilitate surgical excision. These techniques may be employed as an alternative to the more invasive colectomy.

Treatment for FAP depends on the genotype. Most individuals with the APC mutation will develop colon cancer by the age of 40, although the less-common attenuated version typically manifests later in life (40–70). Accordingly, in many cases, prophylactic surgery may be recommended before the age of 25, or upon detection if actively monitored. There are several surgical options that involve the removal of either the colon or both the colon and rectum.

- Rectum involved: the rectum and part or all of the colon are removed. The patient may require an ileostomy (permanent stoma where stool goes into a bag on the abdomen) or have an ileo-anal pouch reconstruction. The decision to remove the rectum depends on the number of polyps in the rectum as well as the family history. If the rectum has few polyps, the colon is partly or fully removed and the small bowel (ileum) can be directly connected to the rectum instead (ileorectal anastomosis).

- Rectum not involved: the portion of the colon manifesting polyps can be removed and the ends 'rejoined' (partial colectomy), a surgery that has a substantial healing time, but leaves quality of life largely intact.

Prophylactic colectomy is indicated if more than a hundred polyps are present, if there are severely dysplastic polyps, or if multiple polyps larger than 1 cm are present.

Treatment for the two milder forms of FAP may be substantially different from the more usual variant, as the number of polyps are far fewer, allowing more options.

Various medications are being investigated for slowing malignant degeneration of polyps, most prominently the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). NSAIDS have been shown to significantly decrease the number of polyps but do not usually alter management since there are still too many polyps to be followed and treated endoscopically.

Prior to reaching the advanced stages of colorectal cancer, the polyps are confined to the inner wall and thickness of the intestinal tract and do not metastasize or 'spread'. So provided FAP is detected and controlled either at the pre-cancerous stage or when any cancerous polyps are still internal to the intestinal tract, surgery has a very high success rate of preventing or removing cancer, without recurrence, since the locations giving rise to cancer are physically removed "in toto" by the surgery.

Following surgery, if a partial colectomy has been performed, colonoscopic surveillance of the remaining colon is necessary as the individual still has a risk of developing colon cancer. However, if this happened, it would be a fresh incident from polyps developing anew in the unremoved part of the colon subsequent to surgery, rather than a return or metastasis of any cancer removed by the original surgery.

While a combination of radiation and chemotherapy may be useful for rectal cancer, its use in colon cancer is not routine due to the sensitivity of the bowels to radiation. Just as for chemotherapy, radiotherapy can be used in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant setting for some stages of rectal cancer.

In both cancer of the colon and rectum, chemotherapy may be used in addition to surgery in certain cases. The decision to add chemotherapy in management of colon and rectal cancer depends on the stage of the disease.

In Stage I colon cancer, no chemotherapy is offered, and surgery is the definitive treatment. The role of chemotherapy in Stage II colon cancer is debatable, and is usually not offered unless risk factors such as T4 tumor or inadequate lymph node sampling is identified. It is also known that the people who carry abnormalities of the mismatch repair genes do not benefit from chemotherapy. For stage III and Stage IV colon cancer, chemotherapy is an integral part of treatment.

If cancer has spread to the lymph nodes or distant organs, which is the case with stage III and stage IV colon cancer respectively, adding chemotherapy agents fluorouracil, capecitabine or oxaliplatin increases life expectancy. If the lymph nodes do not contain cancer, the benefits of chemotherapy are controversial. If the cancer is widely metastatic or unresectable, treatment is then palliative. Typically in this setting, a number of different chemotherapy medications may be used. Chemotherapy drugs for this condition may include capecitabine, fluorouracil, irinotecan, oxaliplatin and UFT. The drugs capecitabine and fluorouracil are interchangeable, with capecitabine being an oral medication while fluorouracil being an intravenous medicine. Some specific regimens used for CRC are FOLFOX, FOLFOXIRI, and FOLFIRI. Antiangiogenic drugs such as bevacizumab are often added in first line therapy. Another class of drugs used in the second line setting are epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors, of which the two FDA approved ones are cetuximab and panitumumab.

The primary difference in the approach to low stage rectal cancer is the incorporation of radiation therapy. Often, it is used in conjunction with chemotherapy in a neoadjuvant fashion to enable surgical resection, so that ultimately as colostomy is not required. However, it may not be possible in low lying tumors, in which case, a permanent colostomy may be required. Stage IV rectal cancer is treated similar to stage IV colon cancer.

Surgical removal of the tumor, adjuvant chemotherapy prior to tumor removal, and liver transplantation have been used to treat these cancers. Primary liver transplantation provides high, long term, disease-free survival rate in the range of 80%, in cases of complete tumor removal and adjuvant chemotherapy survival rates approach 100%. The presence of metastases is the strongest predictor of a poor prognosis.

Polyps are either pedunculated (attached to the intestinal wall by a stalk) or sessile (grow directly from the wall).

In people presenting with symptoms compatible with radiation enteropathy, the initial step is to identify what is responsible for causing the symptoms. Management is best with a multidisciplinary team including gastroenterologists, nurses, dietitians, surgeons and others.

Medical treatments include the use of hyperbaric oxygen which has beneficial effects in radiation proctitis or anal damage. Nutritional therapies include treatments directed at specific malabsorptive disorders such as low fat diets and vitamin B12 or vitamin D supplements, together with bile acid sequestrants for bile acid diarrhea and possibly antibiotics for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Probiotics have all been suggested as another therapeutic avenue.

Endoscopic therapies including argon plasma coagulation have been used for bleeding telangiectasia in radiation proctitis and at other intestinal sites, although there is a rick of perforation. Sucralfate enemas look promising in proctitis.

Surgical treatment may be needed for intestinal obstruction, fistulae, or perforation, which can happen in more severe cases. These can be fatal if patients present as an emergency, but with improved radiotherapy techniques are now less common.

Optimal treatment usually produces significant improvements in quality of life.

Prevention of radiation injury to the small bowel is a key aim of techniques such as brachytherapy, field size, multiple field arrangements, conformal radiotherapy techniques and intensity-modulated radiotherapy. Medications including ACE inhibitors, statins and probiotics have also been studied and reviewed.

Some benign tumors need no treatment; others may be removed if they cause problems such as seizures, discomfort or cosmetic concerns. Surgery is usually the most effective approach and is used to treat most benign tumors. In some case other treatments may be of use. Adenomas of the rectum may be treated with sclerotherapy, a treatment in which chemicals are used to shrink blood vessels in order to cut off the blood supply. Most benign tumors do not respond to chemotherapy or radiation therapy, although there are exceptions; benign intercranial tumors are sometimes treated with radiation therapy and chemotherapy under certain circumstances. Radiation can also be used to treat hemangiomas in the rectum. Benign skin tumors are usually surgically resected but other treatments such as cryotherapy, curettage, electrodesiccation, laser therapy, dermabrasion, chemical peels and topical medication are used.

Many people with Barrett's esophagus do not have dysplasia. Medical societies recommend that if a patient has Barrett's esophagus, and if the past two endoscopy and biopsy examinations have confirmed the absence of dysplasia, then the patient should not have another endoscopy within three years.

Endoscopic surveillance of people with Barrett's esophagus is often recommended, although little direct evidence supports this practice. Treatment options for high-grade dysplasia include surgical removal of the esophagus (esophagectomy) or endoscopic treatments such as endoscopic mucosal resection or ablation (destruction).

The risk of malignancy is highest in the U.S. in Caucasian men over fifty years of age with more than five years of symptoms. Current recommendations include routine endoscopy and biopsy (looking for dysplastic changes). Although in the past physicians have taken a watchful waiting approach, newly published research supports consideration of intervention for Barrett's esophagus. Balloon-based radiofrequency ablation, invented by Ganz, Stern, and Zelickson in 1999, is a new treatment modality for the treatment of Barrett's esophagus and dysplasia, and has been the subject of numerous published clinical trials. The findings demonstrate radiofrequency ablation has an efficacy of 90% or greater with respect to complete clearance of Barrett's esophagus and dysplasia with durability up to five years and a favorable safety profile.

Proton pump inhibitor drugs have not been proven to prevent esophageal cancer. Laser treatment is used in severe dysplasia, while overt malignancy may require surgery, radiation therapy, or systemic chemotherapy. Additionally, a recent five-year random-controlled trial has shown that photodynamic therapy using photofrin is statistically more effective in eliminating dysplastic growth areas than sole use of a proton pump inhibitor. There is presently no reliable way to determine which patients with Barrett esophagus will go on to develop esophageal cancer, although a recent study found the detection of three different genetic abnormalities was associated with as much as a 79% chance of developing cancer in six years.

Endoscopic mucosal resection has also been evaluated as a management technique. Additionally an operation known as a Nissen fundoplication can reduce the reflux of acid from the stomach into the esophagus.

In a variety of studies, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), like aspirin, have shown evidence of preventing esophageal cancer in people with Barrett's esophagus. However, none of these studies have been randomized, placebo-controlled trials, which are considered the gold standard for evaluating a medical intervention. In addition, the best dose of NSAIDs for cancer prevention is not yet known.

Complete removal of a SSA is considered curative.

Several SSAs confer a higher risk of subsequently finding colorectal cancer and warrant more frequent surveillance. The surveillance guidelines are the same as for other colonic adenomas. The surveillance interval is dependent on (1) the number of adenomas, (2) the size of the adenomas, and (3) the presence of high-grade microscopic features.

Polyps on the vocal folds can take on many different forms, and can sometimes result from vocal abuse, although this is not always the cause. They can occur on one or both vocal folds, and appear as swelling, a bump (similar to a nodule), a stalk-like growth, or a blister-like lesion. Most polyps are larger than nodules, which are more similar to callouses on the vocal folds.

Polyps and nodules can exhibit similar symptoms including hoarseness or breathiness, “rough” or “scratchy” voice, harshness in vocal quality, shooting pain from ear to ear, sensation of having “a lump in the back of the throat”, neck pain, decreased pitch range in the voice, and vocal and bodily fatigue.

If an individual experiences symptoms for more than 2 to 3 weeks, they should see a physician. For a diagnosis, a thorough evaluation of the voice should include a physical examination, preferably by an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat doctor) who specializes in voice, a voice evaluation with a speech-language pathologist (SLP), a neurological examination (in certain cases)

The qualities of the voice that will be evaluated include quality, pitch, loudness, and ability to sustain voicing. In some cases, an instrumental examination may be performed with an endoscope into the mouth or nose; this gives a clear look at the vocal folds and larynx in general. In addition to this, a stroboscope (flashing light) may be used to observe the movement of the vocal folds during speech.

Polyps may be treated with medical, surgical, or behavioral intervention. Surgical intervention involves removing the polyp from the vocal fold. This approach is only used when the growth(s) are very large, or have existed for an extended amount of time. In children, surgical intervention is rare. Existing medical problems may be treated in an effort to reduce the strain and negative impact on the vocal cords. This could include treatment for gastrointestinal reflux disease, allergies, and thyroid problems. Intervention to stop smoking and reduce stress may also be needed. Most people receive behavioral intervention, or vocal therapy, from an SLP. This might involve teaching good vocal hygiene, and reducing or stopping vocal abuse behaviors. Direct voice treatments may be used to alter pitch, loudness, or breathe support to promote good voicing.

Most of these tumors are treated with surgical removal. It is non recurrent.

Wide excision is the treatment of choice, although attempting to preserve hearing. Based on the anatomic site, it is difficult to completely remove, and so while there is a good prognosis, recurrences or persistence may be seen. There is no metastatic potential. Patients who succumb to the disease, usually do so because of other tumors within the von Hippel-Lindau complex rather than from this tumor.

Most treatments involve some combination of surgery and chemotherapy. Treatment with cisplatin, etoposide, and bleomycin has been described.

Before modern chemotherapy, this type of neoplasm was highly lethal, but the prognosis has significantly improved since.

When endodermal sinus tumors are treated promptly with surgery and chemotherapy, fatal outcomes are exceedingly rare.

Treatment and survival is determined, to a great extent, by whether or not a cancer remains localized or spreads to other locations in the body. If the cancer metastasizes to other tissues or organs it usually dramatically increases a patient's likelihood of death. Some cancers—such as some forms of leukemia, a cancer of the blood, or malignancies in the brain—can kill without spreading at all.

Once a cancer has metastasized it may still be treated with radiosurgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biological therapy, hormone therapy, surgery, or a combination of these interventions ("multimodal therapy"). The choice of treatment depends on a large number of factors, including the type of primary cancer, the size and location of the metastases, the patient's age and general health, and the types of treatments used previously. In patients diagnosed with CUP it is often still possible to treat the disease even when the primary tumor cannot be located.

Current treatments are rarely able to cure metastatic cancer though some tumors, such as testicular cancer and thyroid cancer, are usually curable.

Palliative care, care aimed at improving the quality of life of people with major illness, has been recommended as part of management programs for metastasis.

For more general information, see ovarian cancer.

For advanced cancer of this histology, the US National Cancer Institute recommends a method of chemotherapy that combines intravenous (IV) and intraperitoneal (IP) administration. Preferred chemotherapeutic agents include a platinum drug with a taxane.

There is a risk of development of cancer with fundic gland polyposis, but it varies based on the underlying cause of the polyposis. The risk is highest with congenital polyposis syndromes, and is lowest in acquired causes. As a result, it is recommended that patients with multiple fundic polyps have a colonoscopy to evaluate the colon. If there are polyps seen on colonoscopy, genetic testing and testing of family members is recommended.

In the gastric adenocarcinoma associated with proximal polyposis of the stomach (GAPPS), there is a high risk of early development of proximal gastric adenocarcinoma.

It is still unclear which patients would benefit with surveillance gastroscopy, but most physicians recommend endoscopy every one to three years to survey polyps for dysplasia or cancer. In the event of high grade dysplasia, polypectomy, which is done through the endoscopy, or partial gastrectomy may be recommended. One study showed the benefit of NSAID therapy in regression of gastric polyps, but the efficacy of this strategy (given the side effects of NSAIDs) is still dubious.

The tumor must be removed with as complete a surgical excision as possible. In nearly all cases, the ossicular chain must be included if recurrences are to be avoided. Due to the anatomic site of involvement, facial nerve paralysis and/or paresthesias may be seen or develop; this is probably due to mass effect rather than nerve invasion. In a few cases, reconstructive surgery may be required. Since this is a benign tumor, no radiation is required. Patients experience an excellent long term outcome, although recurrences can be seen (up to 15%), especially if the ossicular chain is not removed. Although controversial, metastases are not seen in this tumor. There are reports of disease in the neck lymph nodes, but these patients have also had other diseases or multiple surgeries, such that it may represent iatrogenic disease.

Surgery may be difficult due to the location of these tumors. Surgery alone often leads to recurrence. Chemotherapy is very effective for TVTs. The prognosis for complete remission with chemotherapy is excellent. The most common chemotherapy agents used are vincristine, vinblastine, and doxorubicin. Radiotherapy may be required if chemotherapy does not work.

Many people with diverticulosis have minimal to no symptoms, and do not require any specific treatment. Colonic stimulants should be avoided. Treatments, like some colon cleansers, that cause hard stools, constipation, and straining, are not recommended.

Screening for colonic polyps as well as preventing them has become an important part of the management of the condition. Medical societies have established guidelines for colorectal screening in order to prevent adenomatous polyps and to minimize the chances of developing colon cancer. It is believed that some changes in the diet might be helpful in preventing polyps from occurring but there is no other way to prevent the polyps from developing into cancerous growths than by detecting and removing them.

According to the guidelines established by the American Cancer Society, individuals who reach the age of 50 should perform an occult blood test yearly. Colon polyps as they grow can sometimes cause bleeding within the intestine, which can be detected with the help of this test. Also, persons in their 50s are recommended to have flexible sigmoidoscopies performed once in 3 to 5 years to detect any abnormal growth which could be an adenomatous polyp. If adenomatous polyps are detected during this procedure, it is most likely that the patient will have to undergo a colonoscopy. Medical societies recommend colonoscopies every ten years starting at age 50 as a necessary screening practice for colon cancer. The screening provides an accurate image of the intestine and also allows the removal of the polyp, if found. Once an adenomatous polyp is identified during colonoscopy, there are several methods of removal including using a snare or a heating device. Colonoscopies are preferred over sigmoidoscopies because they allow the examination of the entire colon; a very important aspect, considering that more than half of the colonic polyps occur in the upper colon, which is not reached during sigmoidoscopies.

It has been statistically demonstrated that screening programs are effective in reducing the number of deaths caused by colon cancer due to adenomatous polyps. While there are risks of complications associated with colonoscopies, those risks are extremely low at approximately 0.35 percent. For comparison, the lifetime risk of developing colon cancer is around 6 percent. As there is a small likelihood of recurrence, surveillance after polyp removal is recommended.

The most common method of testing for hepatoblastoma is a blood test checking the alpha-fetoprotein level. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is used as a biomarker to help determine the presence of liver cancer in children. At birth, infants have relatively high levels of AFP, which fall to normal adult levels by the first year of life. The normal level for AFP in children has been reported as lower than 50 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) and 10 ng/ml. An AFP level greater than 500 (ng/ml) is a significant indicator of hepatoblastoma. AFP is also used as an indicator of treatment success. If treatments are successful in removing the cancer, the AFP level is expected to return to normal.

Fertility subsequent to treatment of surface epithelial-stromal tumors depends mainly on histology and initial

staging to separate it into early borderline (or more benign) versus advanced stages of borderline (or more malignant). Conservative management (without bilateral oophorectomy) of early stage borderline tumors have been estimated to result in chance of over 50% of spontaneous pregnancy with a low risk of lethal recurrence of the tumor (0.5%). On the other hand, in cases of conservative treatment in advanced stage borderline tumors, spontaneous pregnancy rates have been estimated to be 35% and the risk of lethal recurrence 2%.