ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a histological picture of early colonic carcinoma development with suggestive evidence of colon cancer expression in cotton-top tamarins which could have resulted from a series of active colitic episodes. The ulcerative colitis/carcinoma sequence could be considered mechanistically as a "promotion" by colitis of colonic epithelial cells at multiple sites, with the resulting expression of multiple malignant foci. Idiopathic ulcerative colitic patients often develop multicentric primary foci of colonic carcinoma as do those members of the cancer family syndromes. Architectural mucosal remodeling, representing changes associated with repair following prior acute colitic episodes, was evident and included boot-like crypt formations, branching crypts, and tortuous crypts. The cotton-top tamarin develops high incidences of spontaneous colonic carcioma. A majority of the cotton-top tamarin colonic carcinomas had relatively large tumor masses at necropsy that are histologically similar when compared with the intracrypt and intramucosal stages of carcinoma seen in these two cotton-top tamarin.
