An important factor affecting the prognosis of colon cancer, metastasis through blood circulation. Particularly, hepatic metastasis greatly affects prognosis, and predicting the risk of hepatic metastasis by observing the amount of venous invasion seems to be possible venous invasion of resected advanced colon cancer was observed using Victoria blue-H.E. Stain to examine the veins. The grade and location of venous invasion, the diameter of the invading veins, and the involvement and the involvement pathological significance of those factors in hepatic metastasis were evaluated. The subjects were 220 cases of curativly resected solitary advanced colon cancer from among 378 resected cases of primary advanced colon cancer treated at our hospital in the past 8 years (January, 1981-December, 1988) . Positive venous invasion was found in 141 cases (64.1 %) . The invasion was divided into 3 groups : v
1, 1-2; v
2, 3-6; and v
3, more then 7. The diameters of the invading veins were classifed into S, M and L groups according to their diameters. By incidence of invasion, there were 80 cases (56.7 %) of v
1, 48 cases (34.0 %) of v
2, and 13 cases (9.3 %) of v3. By diameter, there were 18 cases (12.8 %) of group S, 95 cases (67.4 %) of group M, and 28 cases (19.9 %) of group L. There was correlation between the two ; the higher the incidence of invasion, the largely the diameter of the invading veins. Among the v (+) group, moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma and a
2+s cases were seen significantly more often, and ly
0, n
0 were seen less often. There was no correlation between the grade of invasion, the diameter of the invading vein or the location of the cancerous lesion, histological type, depth of invasion, or lymph node metastasis. Only lymph invasio (ly
3) showed correlation between grades. The cumulative survival rates for the v (-) cases and v (+) cases were 84.2 % and 58.6 %, respectively, and the 5-year survival rates had poor prognosis with the v (+) cases being significantly poor. The greater the venous invasion, and the larger the diameter of the invading veins, the poorer the prognosis was. There were 17 cases (7.7 %) of postoperative recurrence in the liver, and 16 of those were v (+) . The incidence of venous invasion by grade was v
0, 1.2% ; v
1, 5.0% ; v
2, 12.5 % ; and v
3, 46.2%. The diameters of the invading vein, were group S, 5.6 % ; group M, 7.4 % ; and group L, 28.6 %. Comparison of ssv presence was ssv (+), 14 out of 86 cases (16.3 %) ; and ssv (-), 2 of 55 cases (3.6 %) . The difference was significant (p<0.005) . The state of venous invasion in colon cancer is thus very important in predicting postoprative recurrence of cancer to the liver. In cases at high risk for these factors, observation of the clinical course, with consideration for the risk of recurrence to the liver are needed, even in curatively resected cases.
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