Synchronous and metachronous primary colorectal cancers with concordant and discordant mismatch repair status

Multiple primary colorectal carcinomas (CRCs) synchronous, when detected approximately at the same time, or metachronous, when a significant amount of time has elapsed between diagnoses can show both mismatch repair (MMR) status concordance and discordance between primary tumors. The aim was to evaluate the MMR status of a monoinstitutional, retrospective cohort of synchronous and metachronous CRCs, with a focus on the frequency of cases with discordant MMR status, and explore the MMR status of metastatic nodal deposits. All synchronous and metachronous CRCs diag-nosed in our institution between 2011 and 2023 were collected. Clinicopathologic characteristics were evaluated, including MMR status of all CRCs, BRAF mutation, and MLH1 promoter methylation analyses. MMR status discordant cases were further analyzed, and MMR testing was performed on nodal metastases. Of 3671 patients, 107 (2.9%) had multiple CRCs (94 synchronous and 13 metachronous; total number of CRCs 220). Sixty CRCs were MMR deficient (dMMR) (27.3%), and most were right-sided and high-grad e and showed special histologic features (P < .00001). Ninety-three patients showed intertumoral MMR concordance: 70 (65.4%) with MMR-proficient (pMMR) CRCs, and 23 (21.5%) were dMMR. Fourteen patients (13.1%) showed intertumoral MMR discordance (at least one dMMR and one pMMR), and in 5 patients , nodal metastases were present: 2 patients harbored metastases only from their pMMR cancer, 2 only from their dMMR cancer, and in 1 patient pMMR and dMMR metastases were present. In conclusion, all multiple primary CRCs should analyzed for MMR status as discordant MMR is possible as well as discordant metastatic nodal posits, and this may be important for patient management.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study aimed to evaluate the MMR status of synchronous and metachronous CRCs, and found that there were cases with discordant MMR status and metastatic nodal deposits, which is important for patient management.