RESUMEN
Colorectal carcinoma is the fifth cause of cancer deaths among women and the sixth among men. Aim: to retrospectively analyse the distribution of age, sex, localization and the pathological features of resected large bowel adenocarcinomas at a surgical service. All biopsy reports of resected large bowel carcinomas between 1959 and 1995 were analyzed. Twenty six reports were discarded. Available histological slides were re-examined. Twenty five cases (2,5 percent) had 2 synchronous tumors and 14 subjects (1.4 percent) had 2 different resections due to cancer (metachronic tumors). Sixty percent of tumors were located in the rectum and sigmoid, 74 percent were well differentiated, 17 percent poorly differentiated. Mucinous and signet ring cell variants were found in younger subjects and in 5.1 percent and 2.3 percent of all patients respectively. Eighty four percent of tumors were beyond the muscularis at the moment of resection and 38 percent had lymph node increased from 60 to 65 years ols and rectal cancer frequency decreased from 37,8 to 25,4 percent. Colorectal carcinoma is still diagnosed at an advanced stage and the changes of the natural history of the disease observed in the 2 analyzed periods are similar to those reported in USA and Colombia