Untreated colorectal cancer in a community hospital.

The tumor registry of a community hospital has been reviewed, and 60 patients with untreated colon and rectal cancer have been identified. Thirty-four patients were black and 26 patients were white. Sixty-five percent of black patients had specified colonic lesions primarily distributed in the right colon and proximal to the splenic flexure. Sixty-three percent of white patients had specified lesions localized to the sigmoid colon. The patients had disease in local, regional, and disseminated stages, and lethality was associated with all stages. Forty-eight percent of patients expired in less than 30 days after presenting to the hospital, and two-thirds expired between 1 and 2 months of presentation. Only two patients survived more than 1 year. These data suggest that untreated colorectal cancer will be nearly uniformly fatal early in all patients who go untreated.