Medullary Colonic Carcinoma

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the world after breast and prostate cancer (1). It is also the second most common cause of cancer death in France (2). Most CRCs are adenocarcinomas. However, there is a distinct subtype of adenocarcinoma of relatively recent recognition, called medullary carcinomas (MC). Its recent recognition as a distinct entity (3) has made it difficult to study the epidemiologic characteristics of this cancer, with little population-based data. The largest cohort studied in the literature is from a US sample of 74 patients seen between 1973 and 2006 (4). The main objective of this French retrospective study is to highlight some common features in this group of patients with medullary colorectal cancers, thus improving our knowledge of this cancer subtype and in particular its prognosis.

Medullary colorectal cancer is a type of cancer with a prognosis of its own, probably different from the most common histological entity, colorectal adenocarcinoma.

This is a retrospective study a cohort of 10 cases of colonic adenocarcinoma of medullary type, operated between 2000 and 2020 at the University Hospital of Limoges. A collection of relevant data was realised for the subgroup analysis in search of prognostic factors for this rare entity as well as a comparison of the data from this cohort with those from the literature.