Carcinoma of the colon

In a study of statistical data on 1,215 patients with carcinoma of the colon observed at a university hospital in a twenty-year period, it was noted that the overwhelming majority of patients who were living five years after operation had had no demonstrable extension to lymph nodes at the time of operation. In an increasing proportion of cases in the latter years of the period, diagnosis was made before the lesion was beyond an operable stage. What with today's better surgical techniques that make it possible to adapt operation to a variety of situations that may be encountered when the diseased area is visualized, and with better methods of preparing a patient and of sustaining him during operation, the wide excision so often necessary for cure may now be carried out deliberately and without hurry. The site of the lesion has great bearing on the prognosis, owing to the limits upon the extent of operation in some locations as against the possibility of wide excision of the original lesion and areas of metastasis in others.