CARCINOIDS OF THE RECTUM - AN EVALUATION OF 1271 REPORTED CASES

The present study was conducted to evaluate the current status of rect al carcinoids from multiple systemic aspects, based on extensive infor mation provided by 1271 cases cited in 465 international articles publ ished since 1912, Each case report was carefully read, computerized, a nd analyzed by the gut-pancreatic endocrinoma analysis system (Niigata Registry), To avoid case duplication, cases without individual identi fication, such as the age and sex of the patient, and those with ident ical clinical and laboratory data and institutes of source, were exclu ded, Where appropriate, selected cases from an overall gastrointestina l (GI) series consisting of 4461 cases similarly documented in the sam e Registry were referred to for comparison. The representative charact eristics of rectal carcinoids consisted of a male preponderance, small -sized tumors of 10 mm or less at detection, predominant submucosal in vasion with a relatively high incidence of metastases, a high incidenc e of hematogenous spread, a predominant histology of the B-type growth pattern, a low rate of silver reactivity, the infrequent association of carcinoid syndrome, and a relatively high rate of mortality within 5 years after removal of the lesions.