[Right colon cancer--clinicopathological findings]

The right colon cancer (RCC) has some particularities from point of view of epidemiology, clinical aspects, therapy and prognosis.

We retrospectively analyzed the patients operated in the First Surgical Unit Iaşi during 2004 until 2009, for right colon cancer. The patients' data from the medical files were digitally encoded and included into a MS Access database, and statistically analyzed.

219 cases were included into the analysis, which represents 24.17% from all the patients with colorectal cancer. The median age was 66 years old. A palpable mass into the right abdominal quadrant was founded in 41.5% and anemia in 65.3%. Abdominal ultrasound exam has been performed in all the patients, with 71.3% sensitivity for primary tumor positive diagnosis. Resectability was 89.5% but without multivisceral resections. The intraoperative complication rate was 6.8%; postoperative morbidity was 19.4% with an incidence of anastomotic leak of 1.38%. The postoperative mortality rate was 2.77%. The mean overall survival was 40.13 +/- 1.93 months (median: 49.26). The prognosis factors for the survival rate were: histologic type of the tumor, stage and tumor grading, vascular and perineural invasion. The presence of metastasis in more than 3 lymphnodes as well as resection of fewer than 11 lymphnodes were found as negative prognosis factors for the survival rate.

RCC has an increasing incidence and it is associated especially with elderly patients. The RCC resectability is about 90% with acceptable rates of morbidity and mortality. Perineural and vascular invasion as well as rate of positive lymphnodes and count of resected lymphnodes are prognosis factor for overall survival rate.