Objective: To explore the clinical and pathologic features of multiple gastrointestinal cancers.
Methods: In the past 5 years 820 cases of gastric and colorectal carcinomas were surgically treated in the Nanfang hospital. Multiple primary cancers were pathologically confirmed in 35 (4.3%) of these patients. Ratio of male to female was 2.5:1.
Results: Of these 35 cases, there were 25 multiple colorectal cancers, 10 gastric or gastrointestinal multiple carcinomas. The cancers of 23 of the cases were synchronous and 12 metachronous. The age, interval time and degree of differentiation of the multiple gastric cancers were higher or longer than those of the multiple colorectal and gastrointestinal ones. High frequency of multiple gastrointestinal cancers in the right colon and high incidence of polyps accompanying multiple tumors were found in patients of young age. Survival rate in patients with synchronous cancer were similar to that in patients with single tumor. However patients with metachronous tumors had better prognosis than those with single cancer.
Conclusion: Multiple cancers must be detected as early as possible. Early detection and excision may increase the 5 year survival rate.