[Intestinal obstructions caused by colorectal carcinoma in the aged]

Colorectal cancer is the second most common malignancy of the adult population in the United States. It is exceeded only by lung cancer among males and breast cancer among females. Malignancies of the colon and rectum are responsible for approximately 12 per cent of all adult cancer deaths. These tumors appear as surgical urgency by intestinal obstruction for 15-20 per cent and by perforation for 3-8 per cent of all cases. It often occurs in elderly patients; in fact, urgent surgical operations are especially performed in patients older than seventy. The mortality rate for urgent surgical operation in elderly patients is about 32-54 per cent. This high mortality is even due to concurrent pathologies and particular locoregional and/or general alterations induced by tumor. The authors studied all patients older than 75 years affected by colorectal cancer and treated by choice or by urgency at Dept. of Surgery of the University of Perugia from January 1987 to February 1993 to individualize some clinical, anatomo-pathological and therapeutical significant characteristics about colorectal cancer in geriatric age.