[Cholelithiasis, cholecystectomy and colorectal cancer--a retrospective analysis]

The authors analyzed a series of 421 patients with colorectal cancer after preliminary review of the current literature and the modern theories of the origin of the disease. The patients have been treated at the Department of Propedeutics of Surgical Diseases, Research Institute of Surgery, for the period 1984-1990, and special accent was placed on the study of the relation of colorectal cancer to cholelithiasis and cholecystectomy. It was shown that 1.19 per cent of all patients had been cholecystectomized at mean 10.6 years back and 6.65 per cent had pre-existing or accompanying biliary calculosis with mean duration of symptoms 16.4 years. A major relationship was found between morbidity from colorectal cancer, on the one hand, and patient sex and biliary calculosis, on the other. Eighty nine per cent of the patients with colorectal cancer and with biliary calculosis treated by cholecystectomy were women and 20.3 per cent of the women with colorectal cancer had biliary calculosis and had been cholecystectomized. Attention is focused on the current practical requirements of the prophylaxis of colorectal cancer--adequate attitude to biliary calculosis, feeding habits, specifying cases at risk and their observation.