How long could colon cancer take to develop from stage to stage?

Years....we think.: Every individual tumor is different. The "teaching" is it takes 5 years for a polyp to undergo malignant change (turn into cancer) from there, it depends on location, age and many other factors we don't yet understand. Colon cancer can be indolent (slow growing) or aggressive. It depends on the individual cancer, and everyone is different.