Colorectal carcinoma: a decade of experience at the Lahey Clinic.

Carcinoma of the colon and rectum is the commonest visceral malignancy in this country today. Uncorrected five-year survival rates (1967-1971) for Dukes' A, B, and C lesions were 81 per cent, 62 per cent, and 33 per cent respectively, and are essentially the same as those observed in the previous five-year period (1962-1966). The actuarially corrected five-year survival rates for Dukes' A, B, and C lesions for the ten-year period (1962-1971) were 95 per cent, 90 per cent, and 55 per cent. Further improvement in these statistics depends on bringing the patient to operation with less advanced disease and possibly on supplementing resection with other modalities of therapy.