[Acute left colonic obstruction of neoplastic origin. Study of a series of 128 cases]

A retrospective study of 112 patients with acute obstructive carcinoma of the colon (added to 16 prospective recent cases), whose mean age was 74 years, with metastasis or peritoneal carcinosis in 23% of the cases, shows a high operative mortality (38.4%), an average survival of 804 days and a five years survival actuarial rate of 17.5%. 80% of further deaths were due to cancer. These results and the data of literature encourage the authors to suggest, whenever a curative resection is to be considered, a decompressive proximal colostomy combined to a short investigating laparotomy, followed by a two-stage resection 2 or 3 weeks later.