Similar length of colon is removed regardless of localization in right-sided colonic cancer surgery.

BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancers represent a heterogenous group of tumours. While left segmental colectomy is an accepted and oncologically safe practice for left-sided colonic cancer (CC), some authors suggest that limited segmental resection of right-sided cancer should be debated in order to preserve length of the resected colon. To our knowledge, caecum and ascending CC have not been analysed as different groups of tumours. The objective of this study was to assess if, retrospectively, surgical treatment of caecal cancer differed from ascending CC.

METHODS: A review of all consecutive patients with right colonic resection for cancer admitted to the University hospital of Grenoble from January 2005 to August 2016 was performed. Length of resected colon was compared between caecal primary and ascending CC. Other technical and pathological aspects were analysed such as minimal invasive surgery and number of harvested lymph nodes from anatomic specimens.

RESULTS: Among operated patients, tumour was localized pre-operatively on caecum in 110 cases and on the right ascending colon in 119 cases. Pre-operative localization had no effect on resected colon length (mean 24.5 cm, 24 ± 10.34 versus 25 cm ± 7.28, P = 0.95), on the number of harvested lymph nodes with a mean of 15 (±7.6) nodes in the caecal group versus 15.2 (±7.3) (P = 0.72). We noticed 15 cases of discordance between pre- and post-operative localization (4 versus 11, P = 0.08).

CONCLUSION: Length of resected colon does not differ depending on localization of tumour in our center.