CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF MUCINOUS CARCINOMA OF THE LARGE INTESTINE

In a recent 19-year period a series of 822 patients with colorectal cancer excludng anal cancer were operated on at the department and 31 patients (3.8%) of them had a mucinous carcinoma which were diagnosed according to The General Rules for Colorectal Cancer Study. In order to clarify the characteristics of colorectal mucinous carcinoma, clinicopathological features and prognosis were studied by comparing to other 730 patients with well or moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma of the large intestine who were operated on in the same period. The results were: 1) The male-to-female ratio was about 1:1, an average age was 55.5 years old, and these lesions were predominantly found in the right sided colon including the cecum, ascending and transverse colon. 2) All cancers were in an advanced stage, circumferential development was commonly seen (p<0.05), and high rate of lymph node involvement (p<0.05) and also high rate of severe lymph node metastasis (p<0.01) were observed. 3) Peritoneal metastasis was found in 22.6% of all mucinous carcinomas which was significantly different from that of the control group (p<0.05). 4) A significantly less number of curability A cases was observed in mucinous carcinomas (p<0.05). patients with mucinous carcinoma had a poorer prognosis than control patients, but there was no significant difference between mucinous carcinomas of the colon and rectum.