Clinicopathological characteristics of mucinous and non-mucinous adenocarcinoma in the colon and rectum in Rajavithi Hospital, Thailand.

Background: The clinicopathological characteristics of colorectal mucinous adenocarcinoma (MA) are still controversial. Most of the reports suggested that MA were associated with worse clinicopathological behavior and poorer prognosis than non-mucinous adenocarcinoma (NMA) while the others showed no difference.

Objective: To compare clinicopathological characteristics and tumor recurrence of MA patients with those in NMA patients.

Material And Method: During the period of 2000 to 2009 in Rajavithi Hospital, a total of 427 colorectal adenocarcinoma patient records consisting of 407 NMA and 20 MA were included in this study. Mean age, tumor location, TNM staging at diagnosis, T-stage, N-stage, preoperative CEA level and recurrent rate of MA patients were compared with those of NMA patients.

Results: The distribution of MA patients for gender, mean age, tumor location, TNM stage and preoperative CEA level were similar to those of NMA patients (all p > 0.05). Only the tumor recurrence in MA was significantly more common than that in NMA (p = 0.020, OR = 3.28 (1.14-9.43)), whereas the TNM stage was not significantly different from NMA (p = 0.530). The metastatic site and pattern of metastasis also showed no statistical significance (p = 0.125).

Conclusion: The prognosis of MA is poorer than NMA. This may be associated with mucinous histological type itself.