CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 18, 82-87, Copyright
© 1968 by American Cancer Society
Cancer of the Colon: The Influence of the No-Touch Isolation Technic on Survival Rates
Rupert B. Turnbull Jr. M.D.1,
Kenneth Kyle M.B., M.Ch.2,
Frank R. Watson Ph.D.3, and
John Spratt M.D.4
1 Member of the staff, Department of General Surgery, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio.
2 Surgeon, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Ireland; John M. Wilson Memorial Cancer Research Fellow, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 1965.
3 Associate Research Statistician, Ellis Fischel State Hospital and Cancer Research Center; Associate Professor, Community Health and Medical Practice, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.
4 Chief Surgeon, Ellis Fischel State Cancer Hospital; Professor of Surgery, University of Missouri.
It has been suggested that operative manipulation of a cancer-bearing segment of colon will increase the incidence of fatal metastasis.
A technic for removal of the cancer bearing segment referred to as notouch isolation was utilized in 460 patients who underwent "resection for cure." The age-corrected five-year survival rate is 81.6 per cent.
The evidence suggests that the greatly improved survival rates are due to the use of the no-touch isolation resection method and that the heretofore conventional manipulative resection technics for cancer of the colon should be abandoned.