Cancer Health Center

continued...

Table 8 summarizes the clinical practice guidelines from different professional societies regarding diagnosis and surveillance of FAP.

Table 8. Clinical Practice Guidelines for Diagnosis and Colon Surveillance of Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP)

Once an FAP family member is found to manifest polyposis, the only effective management is colectomy. Patient and doctor should enter into an individualized discussion to decide when surgery should be done. It is useful to incorporate into the discussion the risk of developing desmoid tumors following surgery. Timing of risk-reducing surgery usually depends on the number of polyps, their size, histology, and symptomatology.[135] Once numerous polyps have developed, surveillance colonoscopy is no longer useful in timing the colectomy because polyps are so numerous that it is not possible to biopsy or remove all of them. At this time, it is appropriate for patients to consult with a surgeon who is experienced with available options, including total colectomy and postcolectomy reconstruction techniques.[136] Rectum-sparing surgery, with sigmoidoscopic surveillance of the remaining rectum, is a reasonable alternative to total colectomy in those compliant individuals who understand the consequences and make an informed decision to accept the residual risk of rectal cancer occurring despite periodic surveillance.[137]

Surgical options include restorative proctocolectomy with ileal pouch anal anastomosis (IPAA), subtotal colectomy with ileorectal anastomosis (IRA), or total proctocolectomy with ileostomy (TPC). TPC is reserved for patients with low rectal cancer in which the sphincter cannot be spared or for patients on whom an IPAA cannot be performed because of technical problems. Following TPC, there is no risk for developing rectal cancer because the whole mucosa at risk has been removed. Whether a colectomy and an IRA or a restorative proctocolectomy is performed, most experts suggest that periodic and lifelong surveillance of the rectum or the ileal pouch be performed to remove or ablate any polyps. This is necessitated by case series of rectal cancers arising in the rectum of FAP patients who had subtotal colectomies with an IRA in which there was an approximately 25% cumulative risk of rectal adenocarcinoma 20 years after IRA and by case reports of adenocarcinoma in the ileoanal pouch and anal canal after restorative proctocolectomy.[138,139,140,141] The cumulative risk of rectal cancer after IRA may be lower than that reported in the literature, in part because of better selection of patients for this procedure, such as those with minimal polyp burden in the rectum.[136] Other factors that have been reported to increase the rectal cancer risk after IRA include the presence of colon cancer at the time of IRA, the length of the rectal stump, and the duration of follow-up after IRA.[142,143,144,145,146,147,148]