Colorectal Cancer in Patients Less Than 30 Years of Age

Satoru Okumoto, Yoshiki Horita, Michio Kato, Hiroyuki Deguchi, Yoshimasa Hashimoto, Katsuya Kuroda, Masayoshi Sakane, Toshimasa Yamaguchi, Yoichi Saitho

First Department of Surgery, Kobe University School of Medicine

The Clinicopathological features of colorectal carcinoma in young patients (under 30 years old) and older patients examined in our department were compared. There were 12 young patients, who accounted for 2.2% of a total of 534 patients with colorectal carcinoma. Three of the 12 patients had rectal cancer with abdominal pain as the chief complaint among clinical signs, and the incidence was higher than that in older patients. When examined according to histological type, there were only 2 cases of highly-differentiated adenocarcinoma, which was as low as that in the older patients. Thus most of the young patients showed poorer differentiation. Determination of the histological degree of invasion revealed a significantly large number of cases (55.6%) of infiltration to other organs. There was peritoneal dissemination in 3 cases (27.3%), and there were 4 stage V cases (44.4%). In most of the young patients the lesion progressed after surgery. These findings were considered to explain the low rate of resection and the poor end results after resection. However, the results after curative resection were satisfactory, suggesting that thorough examination is necessary for early diagnosis, taking into consideration the existence of colorectal carcinoma even in young people.

Key words
colorectal cancer in young adults, colorectal cancer less than 30 years of age

Reprint requests
Satoru Okumoto First Department of Surgery, Kobe University School of Medicine
7-5-1 Kusunoki, Chuo-ku, Kobe, 650 JAPAN

Accepted
October 11, 1990

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