BATON ROUGE — Colon cancer is staged from 0 to 4. The stage determines the extent of the cancer – and the treatment.

"Stages 3 and 4 are considered advanced stages, where the cancer goes into the lymph nodes in stage 3 disease, and it goes into distant organs like the lungs, liver or bones in stage 4 disease," Dr. Umar Majeed said.

Majeed says the liver is the most common organ colorectal spreads to.

"We are offering liver transplantation as an option to select patients. We have a hepatic artery infusion pump program also available for those patients where the cancer has spread from the colon or the rectum to the liver," Majeed said.

The pump delivers chemotherapy directly to artery that supplies the liver. He says in addition to surgery, treatment options include better drugs, immunotherapy and targeted therapies.

"We have surgeons who specialize in advanced procedures such as cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC, which is a form of specialized chemotherapy given into the peritoneum for select patients," Majeed said.

With all these advanced options, Dr. Majeed remains cautiously optimistic.

"Colorectal cancer is a type of cancer where, even if it's stage 4, there is a chance of cure in select cases," Majeed said.