Colorectal cancer: a large unselected Australian series

An unselected prospective consecutive series of 575 patients with a single adenocarcinoma of the colon and of 331 patients with a single adenocarcinoma of the rectum registered between 1971 and 1984 at the Princess Alexandra Hospital is reported. The tumours were staged according to the Australian Clinicopathological Staging (ACPS) System. Approximately one-quarter of the patients were incurable when they presented. For curative operations for carcinoma of the colon, the operative mortality was 3%. For curative operations for carcinoma of the rectum, the operative mortality was 1% for abdominoperineal resection and 4.5% for anterior resection. The relative 5 year survival for all patients was 54.5%. The findings are compared with other large Australian series as well as with series from the United Kingdom and the United States.