Anastomotic recurrence of adenocarcinoma of the colon
J. P. Stulc, N. J. Petrelli, L. Herrera and A. Mittelman
The cases of 158 patients with locally recurrent colorectal carcinoma were
retrospectively studied. Eighteen patients (11.4%) had a recurrent lesion
at the site of anastomosis. Sixteen patients who underwent a primary
curative resection had a median disease-free interval of 13 months, while
two patients with a palliative resection had a disease-free interval of two
months. All recurrences occurred within 27 months of the primary surgery.
Abdominal pain was the most frequent presenting symptom, followed by melena
and a change in bowel habits. Eighty-nine percent of the recurrences
occurred in the context of metachronous or synchronous metastases equally
distributed between local-regional and distant diseases. Thirteen patients
underwent resection of recurrent disease, of which eight resections were
curative. The median survival following curative resection was 23 months,
with 14 months for palliative resection and five months for no resection.
