Variations in clinical characteristic and prognosis of colon carcinoma by location

Objective To analyze the clinical features and prognosis of colon carcinoma by location. Methods Clinical data, including age, gender, clinical symptom, histological features, vessel tumor emboli, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, clinical stage, about 361 cases with colon carcinoma who were treated in our hospital from January 2007 to June 2010 were analyzed, with 194 cases of left-colon carcinoma(LCC) and 167 cases of right-colon carcinoma(RCC). Results Patients with RCC showed older age and higher percentage of female patients than patients with LCC(> 60 years, 31.1% vs 18.0%; 61.1% vs 41.8%), and they mainly presented with abdominal pain(37.3%), hematochezia(22.8%), abdominal masses(23.4%), while rectal bleeding(54.1%) intestinal obstructions(11.3%) were more commonly seen in left-sided colon cancers.The histology results of patients with RCC showed higher percentage of poorly differentiated and vessel tumor emboli than patients with LCC with statistically significant difference(24.5% vs 12.9%; 11.4% vs 6.7%, P< 0.05).Moreover, the five-year survival rate of patients with RCC was significantly lower than patients with LCC(69.5% vs 77.3%, P< 0.05). Conclusion Right-and left-sided colon cancers are different from each other in terms of histology, clinical features and prognosis.Patients with right-sided colon cancer are older with higher percentage of female patients, poorly differentiated, vessel carcinoma embolus and degree of malignancy, and lower five-year survival rate.