Cancer in patients with chronic ulcerative colitis

✍ Scribed by Robert C. Hickey; Robert T. Tidrick

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1958
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 510 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(195801/02)11:1<35::aid-cncr2820110110>3.0.co;2-1

✦ Synopsis

NCREASING attention is being directed to I early detection of cancer, for through early diagnosis, therapy is enhanced. As a part of improved cancer detection and diagnosis, a fuller understanding of premalignant conditions would seem worthwhile. Also, a fuller understanding of premalignant conditions should result in a more complete knowledge of cancer.

Chronic ulcerative colitis is a precancerous condition. Bargenl pointed out initially in 1928 that the frequency of colonic and rectal cancers seemed disproportionately great in patients with long-standing chronic ulcerative colitis. While occasionally contested, Bargen's observations have been substantiated many times in the past 3 decades. His more recent publications have amplified these observations, and composite reviews61 10 support the thesis. Chronic ulcerative colitis, as a disease or pathological entity, has many bewildering facets. It is a physically disabling, financially crippling disease, and these are all the more apparent because the young are affected heavily. It has many complications. Of its several catastrophic complications, carcinoma is much to be dreaded and is most often fatal. If carcinoma is accepted as a danger in long-standing active disease, the issue rests then with the magnitude of the danger. What is the neoplastic potential of unremitting chronic ulcerative colitis?

METHOD

This study is of 326 patients with chronic ulcerative colitis observed at least once at the University Hospitals, Iowa City, Iowa, from