A Case of Sigmoid Colon Cancer Associated with von Recklinghausen's Disease

Hiroshi Takahashi, Tetsuya Yamaguchi, Ryoji Takeda, Shingo Sakata and Michihiro Yamamoto

Department of Surgery, Rakuwakai Otowa Hospital

We reported a case of von Recklinghausen's disease (VRD) associated with sigmoid colon cancer. A 35-year-old man diagnosed with VRD since childhood the same as his mother was seen for left lower abdominal pain. Colon fiberscopy showed advanced sigmoid colon cancer, necessitating laparoscopy-assisted sigmoidectomy. Although nonepithelial tumors such as neurofibrosarcoma are known to occur frequently in patients with VRD, epithelial tumors are thought to be rare. It has been pointed out that VRD patients may possibly inherit cancers of the colon and rectum. We clinically considered this possibility by examining cases in Japan from 1983 to 2004. The result showed that the average age (57.6 y.o.) of VRD patients (28 cases including ours) with colonic and rectal cancers was significantly low compared with the average age (68.4 y.o.) of non-VRD patients with the cancers operated in our hospital these 2 years. However, the incidence of VRD patients with colonic and rectal cancers was low against recent increases of these cancers in Japan. We confirmed that there was no increase of colon and rectal cancers with VRD patients.

Key words
von Recklinghausen's disease, colon and rectal cancer, NF-1 gene

Reprint requests
Hiroshi Takahashi Department of Surgery, Rakuwakai Otowa Hospital
2 Otowachinji-cho, Yamashina-ku, Kyoto, 607-8062 JAPAN

Accepted
January 26, 2005

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.