Synchronous cancers of the gastrointestinal tract: results, diagnosis, and treatment.

During the period of January 1, 1957 to January 1, 1982, complete inpatient and outpatient records of 62 cases of synchronous cancers of the gastrointestinal tract were submitted for a retrospective analysis. The total number of gastrointestinal cancer cases from the Saint Francis General Hospital and two affiliating hospitals was 1,550 with a resultant synchronous cancer incidence of 4 percent. In this small series of 62 cases, the operability rate was 100 percent, with a resectability rate of 96 percent. The surgical morbidity and mortality rates were 12 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.The most frequent clinical manifestations were pain, borborygmi, nausea, vomiting, food intolerance, dysphagia, hematemesis, rectal bleeding, and weight loss.The five and ten year survival in the synchronous group was 82 percent and 64 percent, respectively, as compared with 36.1 percent and 27.8 percent for the single malignant group.