[Study of the natural history of rectal cancer in 110 patients]

The authors present the natural history of 110 patients with rectal carcinoma, treated at the Surgical Ward of the District Hospital in Staszów (the świetokrzyski region). The aim of this paper is to estimate the degree of early detection of rectal cancer. On the grounds of the conducted studies the authors come to a conclusion that the degree of early detection of rectal cancer in the Staszów region is low; only 21.1% of the cases were diagnosed in ambulant circumstances. It caused the average delay of hospitalization of 10 months. The authors claim that the lack of the Oncology Education Centre in the region or the lack of a programme concerning the fight against rectal cancer in Poland is the reasons of their findings.