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Cancer of the colon and rectum discovered at autopsy in Hawaiian Japanese
Author(s) -
Stemmermann G. N.
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0142(196611)19:11<1567::aid-cncr2820191118>3.0.co;2-a
Subject(s) - medicine , rectum , autopsy , cancer , colorectal cancer , large intestine , stomach , incidence (geometry) , intestinal cancer , carcinoma , gastroenterology , physics , optics
Carcinoma of the large intestine or rectum is not a common tumor in Japan yet it equals the stomach in frequency among Hawaiians of Japanese ancestry. A study of carcinoma of the large intestine discovered at autopsy in a Honolulu hospital revealed clinically unsuspected cancer in 3.4% of 379 Japanese patients who were older than 70. These constituted 14% of all of this hospital's newly registered large‐bowel cancer patients in this age group. The majority of the tumors were at the Dukes A stage, suggesting that they were probably presymptomatic. These patients averaged 83 years of age. This suggests that careful autopsy study of the large intestine in all Japanese dying after age 70 might double the yield of new tumors in this age group. In the face of a rising incidence of large‐bowel cancer in old age, de‐emphasis of frequency and precision of autopsies will make future morbidity studies increasingly inaccurate.