Abstract
Reports of an increased incidence of right-sided colonic cancers have coincided with an expanding knowledge of the carcinogenic potential of secondary bile acids which are increased after cholecystectomy, suggesting a possible relationship between cholecystectomy and the subsequent occurrence of proximal colonic cancer. The hospital records of 582 patients undergoing resection of colorectal cancers were reviewed. Fifty-four patients (9 per cent) had had prior cholecystectomies. The distribution of colonic cancers in these patients was identical to that in noncholecystectomized patients. To obtain a prospective view, 249 patients undergoing cholecystectomy between 1958 and 1960 were followed up to 1980. A cancer of the sigmoid colon or rectum occurred in four patients, three to 22 years after cholecystectomy. No patient was readmitted with a carcinoma of the proximal colon. These data fail to support a relationship between cholecystectomy and the subsequent development of a cancer of the cecum or ascending colon.
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Read at the meeting of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, San Francisco, California, May 2 to 6, 1982.
This study was aided in part by a grant from the Vermont Division, American Cancer Society.
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Abrams, J.S., Anton, J.R. & Dreyfuss, D.C. The absence of a relationship between cholecystectomy and the subsequent occurrence of cancer of the proximal colon. Dis Colon Rectum 26, 141–144 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02560154
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02560154