Effect of various biological factors on spontaneous marmoset and tamarin colitis. A retrospective histopathologic study.

Histological sections of colons from 69 tamarins (46 Saguinus oedipus and 23 Saguinus fuscicollis illigeri) and 27 marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) that died between 1979 and 1984 were examined for colitis. Evaluated biological factors were species, age at death, source of animals, manner of death, presence of colon cancer, and time after importation. Most normal colons were found in young animals (dead at less than 1 years of age).

Histology of colon cancer in Saguinus oedipus oedipus.

Diagnosis of colon cancer in tamarins often requires histologic (microscopic) inspection of the entire colon before minute primary sites can be located in the flat colonic mucosa. In other cases the cancer is easily recognized grossly because infiltration produces local desmoplastic reactions. The cancer does not have a preceding benign polypoid stage.