Is the Presence of Micropapillary Component in Colorectal Carcinoma Associated with More Aggressive Behavior? A Histopathological Study

Carcinomas with micropapillary component have recently been described in several organs such as breast, bladder, lung and salivary glands. They have been reported to have an aggressive behavior with a high propensity for lymphovascular invasion, lymph node metastasis and poor clinical outcome. However micropapillary carcinoma has not been thoroughly studied in the large intestine. The aim of this study is to determine whether micropapillary component of colorectal adenocarcinoma is associated with aggressive behavior as described in other organs or not. Fifty cases of colorectal carcinomas were studied for the presence of micropapillary component, age, gender, tumor size, tumor grade, tumor location, nodal metastasis, lymphovascular invasion and tumor stage (pT). Micropapillary component was found in 18% of studied cases. In colorectal carcinoma with micropapillary component, nodal metastasis was detected in 88.9% of cases, lymphovascular invasion was detected in 77.8% of cases, as for tumor stage, pT3 was seen in 66.7% of cases. A significant correlation was found between colorectal carcinoma with micropapillary component and tumor stage (p 0.05), lymph nodes metastasis (p 0.05) and lymphovascular invasion (p 0.05). In summary this study concludes that micropapillary component could be a significant histologic prognostic factor of tumor aggression and subsequently tumor metastasis and therefore can affect patient long term survival.