Anastomotic recurrence of adenocarcinoma of the colon.

The cases of 158 patients with locally recurrent colorectal carcinoma were retrospectively studied. Eighteen patients (11.4%) had a recurrent lesion at the site of anastomosis. Sixteen patients who underwent a primary curative resection had a median disease-free interval of 13 months, while two patients with a palliative resection had a disease-free interval of two months. All recurrences occurred within 27 months of the primary surgery. Abdominal pain was the most frequent presenting symptom, followed by melena and a change in bowel habits. Eighty-nine percent of the recurrences occurred in the context of metachronous or synchronous metastases equally distributed between local-regional and distant diseases. Thirteen patients underwent resection of recurrent disease, of which eight resections were curative. The median survival following curative resection was 23 months, with 14 months for palliative resection and five months for no resection.