Clinical and pathological prognostic indicators with colorectal mucinous carcinomas

Abstract

Background/aims: Colorectal mucinous carcinomas are considered to have a worse prognosis than typical adenocarcinomas. To evaluate the prognostic relevance of a series of clinical and pathological variables, patients with colorectal mucinous carcinomas were studied retrospectively.

Methodology: Ninety-eight patients who underwent surgery for colorectal mucinous carcinomas were included in this study. We firstly examined whether signet-ring cell carcinomas exhibited worse prognosis than the other mucinous carcinomas. Prognostic factors were then analyzed by both univariate and multivariate analysis for 70 patients who underwent complete resection.

Results: The overall five-year survival rate was 44%. Amount of signet-ring cells was a non-significant indicator of poor prognosis. For the cases whose cancers were completely resected, four parameters (liver metastasis, lymph node involvement, vessel involvement, spread beyond the bowel wall) were significantly related to prognosis on univariate analysis. With the multivariate analysis, liver metastasis and spread beyond the bowel wall were independent variables.

Conclusions: This study reaffirmed the importance of liver metastasis and spread beyond the bowel wall for prediction of prognosis with colorectal mucinous carcinomas for cases who undergo complete resection. In addition, the presence of signet-ring cells is a non-significant indicator of a poor prognosis.