Agreements between CT, Intra-operative Inspection and Pathology Regarding Staging Local Cancer Colon

Abstract

Colorectal carcinoma is the most common gastrointestinal malignancy, accurate staging is very important for proper treatment, Continuous advances in CT machines, continuous change in disease process and its pathogenicity will change the accuracy of this modality and weather it can be relied on in local staging. Our aim is to evaluate the accuracy of contrast enhanced computed tomography (CT) in local staging of colorectal cancer by comparing it to operative findings and whether surgeon can depend on its results in planning surgery, also comparing CT and intraoperative results to pathology reports. so we can see the strength points and weakness points of CT regarding macroscopic eye inspection and compare it to microscopic pathologic way. Results regarding the T-staging, the CT accurately diagnosed 83 cases correctly, while the intraoperative examination of the specimen diagnosed only 81 cases correctly, a difference which is not statistically significant, regarding N stage, the intraoperative examination was more accurate than the CT as it correctly diagnosed 61 cases while the CT diagnosed only 56 cases correctly, a difference which is also not statistically significant. Our conclusion is that CT is an accurate method in staging regarding stage III and IV, the accuracy is still not reliable in stage I and II. Regarding N- staging system CT has low accuracy regarding pathology, this accuracy increases if compared with operative data.