Definition
Colorectal carcinoma comprises all malignant epithelial tumors of the colon and rectum, the most frequent of which is colorectal adenocarcinoma. Unlike in the stomach or small intestine, only tumors that have invaded through the muscularis mucosae into the submucosa are considered malignant in the colon and rectum thus being called invasive carcinoma by the World Health Organization (WHO) classification (Bosman et al. 2010; UICC 2009). This is due to the fact that in the colon and rectum, a neoplasm has malignant potential only after invasion of the submucosa, where lymphatic vessels are located. Unfortunately, the term “carcinoma” is not used uniformly. This especially applies to the intermediate lesions between intraepithelial neoplasia (dysplasia) and invasive carcinoma that show invasion into the lamina propria mucosae or between the fibers of the muscularis mucosae without invading the submucosa. Hence, one has to be careful to avoid being misled by statistics and...
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References
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Wittekind, C. (2014). Colorectal Cancer Pathology. In: Schwab, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cancer. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_6772-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_6772-6
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