Colon cancer is a disease with high frequency and mortality rates, which treatment is based, fundamentally, on surgical resection. Because early diagnosis increases the curability, it is essential to have a screening programs offering early treatment. A retrospective study was performed, including 66 patients who underwent colonic resections due to cancer, for 58 months at Hospital Universitario of Universidade de São Paulo. These patients were divided in two groups, group 1, submitted to elective surgery (28 patients), and group 2, submitted to emergency surgery (38 patients). The groups were comparable for gender, age, clinical presentation, surgical procedure techniques, tumor distribution, TNM stage, morbidity, postoperative hospital stay and postoperative mortality. No difference was observed in patients’age. Males were predominant in the urgency surgery group. Lower gastrointestinal bleeding was the main symptom in the elective group, whereas abdominal pain was the main symptom in the urgency group. Mostly of the patients were having symptoms for months at the time of surgery. Urgency group patients presented more pT4 tumors, and elective group patients presented more stage I cancer. In both groups the oncologic approach was achieved, as well as primary anastomosis rates (81.8%). No differences in average hospital stay, hospital morbidity or postoperative mortality were recorded.
colon cancer; urgency; complications; surgery
