Clinical characteristics and their relation to surgical curability in adenocarcinoma of the rectum and rectosigmoid. A population-based study on 279 consecutive patients.

Between January 1980 and December 1982, 221 patients with rectal or rectosigmoid carcinoma were admitted from a defined population to one department of surgery in Sweden. In addition, all patients with a rectal tumour were traced in the population, and in this way 83 additional cases were recorded. A total of 304 malignant lesions were diagnosed and 279 (92%) of them were adenocarcinoma. The surgical curability rate in this unselected material of adenocarcinoma of the rectum and rectosigmoid, defined as the proportion of patients operated upon for cure with respect to both local radicality of surgery and absence of indications of disseminated disease, was 60%. Age (greater than or less than 80 years) but not sex had a major influence on the rate of surgical curability. Weight loss and pain, and also more than two tumour-related symptoms at presentation, were more common among patients with noncurable disease. A short diagnostic delay correlated to a more favourable tumour stage.