[Recurrent micro-satellite stable colonic cancer: prolonged survival of 16 years without adjuvant therapy]

Long-term survival in malignant disease is often linked to intensified therapeutic interventions. We report the case of a colonic cancer in a 78 years old female patient, who underwent her first operation in 1987 for a symptomatic T4 carcinoma. Since then, the patient has always denied any form of follow-up examination and adjuvant therapy. Recently, she has undergone her fourth operation, which for the first time demonstrated peritoneal carcinosis, and is still in very good health.Clinical experience shows that in some cases standard therapies may unexpectedly produce extremely long survival times. This has to be kept in mind when the value of prognostic markers is discussed and limits the validity of survival data in the context of small scale studies dealing with especially extended therapeutic protocols.