Revised management of advanced primary colon cancer: Case series of 2 patients.

Highlights • The surgical removal of a primary colon cancer demands complete clearance and absolute containment of the malignant process. • Not all colon cancers are the same although the resection strategy varies little or not at all with the clinical features of the disease. • The patient may enter the operating theater with a contained malignant process and leave with disseminated disease. • Clinical and radiologic features of colon cancer indicate a high risk for cancer dissemination as a result of the resection. • The surgeon must document in the medical record preoperatively the likelihood of clearance and containment. Abstract Background The resection of a primary colon cancer has the opportunity to cure the patient of cancer by complete clearance and absolute containment of disease. Alternatively, if the cancer resection does not provide clearance and containment it will eventuate in local recurrence and peritoneal dissemination. Methods Culpability of recurrence of colorectal cancer is difficult to determine. Are the management strategies of the primary cancer evaluation and treatment at fault or is the underlying disease process is to be held responsible? The clinical and radiologic findings that could have been evaluated by a multidisciplinary team (MDT) were critically evaluated in 2 patients with right colon adenocarcinoma. Strategies to accomplish complete clearance and absolute containment of the primary malignancy as resectable for cure were suggested. Results Clinical evaluation of these 2 patients suggested that more knowledgeable preoperative evaluation by the multidisciplinary team (MDT) should have placed them in a high risk group for local recurrence and/or peritoneal dissemination. High carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) tumor marker and by CT a large primary cancer infiltrating adjacent structures can be used to select advanced pre- and intraoperative treatment strategies. Conclusions Two patients who had an approximately 50% possibility of long-term survival with optimal preoperative evaluation and expert surgical resection techniques may have been converted to a greatly reduced survival because of tumor dissemination and positive margins of resection at the time of primary cancer resection. Neither patient was evaluated by an MDT preoperatively. It is possible that these two patients entered the operating room with a contained malignancy but as result of suboptimal pre- and intraoperative management left the operating room with disseminated intraperitoneal disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]