Slide 1

Gross:  The patient who harbored the two pedunculated adenomas that you just saw also had a  huge fungating adenocarcinoma of the cecum.  The histologic section in your class set was taken at the junction of carcinoma and normal mucosa in the plane of the large black bar.

Slide 2

The left panel is a low power view of the slide in your class set showing the normal colonic mucosa (M) and the raised, overhanging margin of the exophytic carcinoma.  As is unfortunately too often the case in resected carcinomas, the tumor extends throughout the entire thickness of the bowel wall.  The field marked by the arrow shows both normal and carcinomatous epithelium that is shown at higher magnification in the right panel..The normal colonic mucosa (M) is composed of the typical straight tubular glands.  Note the granular crowding and the complex glandular pattern of the carcinoma (C).