Abstract
We report the case of a patient with an adenosquamous cell carcinoma of the rectosigmoid.
A 54-year-old man was seen at our hospital with the chief complaint of bloody stool of one year duration.
Sigmoidscopy disclosed the small, Borrmann type II like tumor to be about 13 cm from the anus, and a biopsy was taken. The diagnosis of the biopsied tissue was well differentiated adenocarcinoma.
Barium-enema studies revealed the small filling defect in the rectosigmoid. An abdominal anterior resection was performed with no metastasis in the regional lymphnodes and liver.
On resected specimen, the tumor measured 2 cm in greatest diameter. On microscopic examination, well differentiated adenocarcinoma was seen in the layer of mucousmembrane, and keratinizing squomous cell carcinoma was seen in the layer of submucosa, muscularis propria, and subserosa.
Adenosquamous cell carcinoma of the colon and rectum is a rare tumor, first described by Herxheimer in 1904.
Up to the present, 31 cases of adenosquamous cell carcinoma of the colon and rectum have been reported in the literature. The figure suggests that this histologic tumor differentiation in the colon and rectum is very rare.
