Colon cancer associated with ulcerative colitis and early diagnosis

Ulcerative colitis(UC) is known to be associated with colon cancer. The risk factors of cancer incidence are total colitis type and over 10 years clinical course. The macroscopic appearance of cancer with UC mainly consist of type 3, 4 and dominant histological type is mucinous adenocarcinoma or poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. Most of cancer is considered to raise from dysplasia. The dysplasia is difficult for diagnosis macroscopically, but it has characters of DNA aneuploidy and positive p53. For early diagnosis of cancer, surveillance is very important. The surveillance program is recommended to perform colonoscopy every year to UC patients with over 10 years course and take biopsies from every 10 cm of colon. If high-grade dysplasia is discovered by surveillance colonoscopy, a resection of total colon should be performed.