CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RIGHT-SIDED AND LEFT-SIDED COLON CANCERS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the clinicopathological differences between cancers in the right-sided colon and those in the left-sided colon. After excluding multiple cancer cases, 620 patients with primary colon cancer were enrolled in this study. They comprised of 269 patients with right-sided colon cancer and 351 with left-sided colon cancer. We compared the two groups with respect to clinicopathological findings.
The patients with right-sided colon cancer tended to have larger tumors, less differentiated tumors such as poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, signet ring cell carcinoma and mucinous carcinoma, and higher prevalence of distant lymphnode involvement and peritoneal metastasis, than those with left-sided colon cancer. There were, however, no significant differences in histological staging and survival rates in these two groups.