Cancer survival is improving rapidly due to advances in treatments that will often involve radiotherapy, chemotherapy and novel biological agents in addition to surgery. This comes at the price of living with chronic symptoms, of which diarrhoea is particularly common. There is good evidence that for many patients these symptoms become part of everyday life, their “normality” is adjusted and symptoms are tolerated even when limiting activities severely. Clinicians often fail to appreciate the impact of these problems, as the focus of follow up tends to be on cancer recurrence. However, the rapid identification of patients in significant trouble can lead to earlier diagnosis of treatable pathologies and improvement of patients’ symptoms. The aim of this review is to highlight the mechanisms which cause oncology patients to develop diarrhoea and highlight useful investigational and treatment strategies.

由于手术的进展，癌症的生存正在迅速改善，这​​不仅包括外科手术，还包括放射疗法，化学疗法和新型生物制剂。这是以生活中慢性症状为代价的，其中腹泻尤为常见。有充分的证据表明，对于许多患者来说，这些症状已成为日常生活的一部分，即使严重限制活动量，也可以调节其“正常”状态并且可以耐受症状。由于随访的重点往往集中在癌症的复发上，因此临床医生通常无法理解这些问题的影响。但是，快速识别有严重问题的患者可以导致较早诊断出可治疗的疾病并改善患者的症状。