[Adenocarcinoma of the appendix. Apropos of 11 new cases].

The authors review 11 new cases of adenocarcinoma of the appendix and 220 other cases drawn from the literature. In the first series, 6 patients presented with abscess or perforations. The tumor was proximal in 5, distal in 2, medial in 2, and total in 2. It extended to the cecum in 4 cases and to the lymph nodes in two. The clinical picture was one of appendicitis in seven patients, an iliac growth in three and occlusion in one. The diagnosis was made by the surgeon in four cases, and by postoperative histological examination in seven. The authors stress the need to open the appendix at operation, to take frozen sections in the event of any doubts, and systematic postoperative histological examination of operative specimens. Appendectomy is a poor solution, even accompanied by partial cecectomy, the survival rate at five years being only 20 %. It is only licit for a unperforated, proximal mucosal or submucosal tumor. The best solution is immediate or secondary right hemicolectomy, for which the survival rate, of 45 % at five years, is close to that of other forms of colic cancers.