SYNCHRONOUS MULTIPLE PRIMARY CANCERS -A REPORT OF TWO CASES-

Abstract

It has been said that carcinomas of the large intestine, breast and corpus uteri share a common pathogenic factor, since these carcinomas often occur simultaneously. When multiple primary carcinomas are simultaneously present, other carcionmas may be ignored resulting in difficult problems with treatment. In the present paper, two cases of synchronous multiple primary carcinomas are reported. One of the patients, an 81-year-old woman, had multiple carcinomas, medullary ductal carcinoma in the breast and moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma in the large intestine, and she underwent simple mastectomy and then excision of the anterior rectum (Hartmann method, R2) three weeks later. The other patient, a 46-year-old woman, had moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma in the large intestine and well differentiated adenocarcinoma in the corpus uteri and she underwent right hemicolectomy (R2) and simple total hysterectomy simultaneously. Although both cases first presented symp-toms of colonic carcinoma, careful examination at the time of admission detected a tumor in the breast and abnormal hemorrhage from the genital region, suggesting the presence of other carcinoma. The postoperative courses of these patients were uneventful, and both have been without any sign of relapse to date over the past nine months. Seven cases, including our case, in which multiple primary carcinoma such as colonic carcinoma and breast cancer or carcinoma of the corpus uteri had been detected, were reviewed and discussed.