rectal

According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer starts in the colon or the rectum, both of which are part of the large intestine, and can also be referred to as colon cancer or rectal cancer, depending on where it originated.

Without calling for an interpreter or ensuring his patient understood what he was about to do, the doctor proceeded with a rectal exam that shocked and traumatized the man, he recalled in an interview with The Times.

The digital rectal exam, or DRE, has long been used to screen for signs of prostate cancer—the most common non-skin cancer in men, killer of over 30,000 a year.

Nobody likes a rectal exam, and yet there’s also something oddly reassuring about it.

That jocular sympathy expressed by patients is illustrative: The digital rectal exam just plain makes men nervous.