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Younger age at colorectal cancer diagnosis linked to advanced illness, but improved survival
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LAS VEGAS — Patients aged younger than 50 years when diagnosed with colorectal cancer often presented with more advanced illness, but had better survival rates, compared with older patients in data presented at the 2012 of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting.
Researchers evaluated a retrospective cohort of 463,675 patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) collected from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry between 1973 and 2008, including 425,497 patients aged older than 50 years and 38,178 aged 50 years or younger.
Patients who presented with colorectal cancer at age 50 years or younger were more likely to have advanced disease with distant metastasis (21.4% of patients compared with 17.8% in the older group). This group also more frequently had larger tumors (20.5% with tumors >5 cm compared with 17.3%), grade 3, poorly differentiated tumors (16% vs. 13.9%) and involvement of the lymph nodes (36.1% compared with 27.7%). Investigators also noted that African-Americans comprised a larger part of the younger group than the older group (13.4% compared with 7.9%) (P<.001 for all).
Despite presenting with advanced disease more frequently, younger patients had greater survival rates at 5 years (63% compared with 59%) and 10 years (61% vs. 56%), and also higher stage-specific survival at all stages of the disease (P<.001). Mean length of overall survival also was longer among younger patients (22.60 years vs. 20.30 years, P<.001).
“Patients less than 50 years with colon cancer presented with more advanced disease, but had better survival compared to patients aged greater than 50 years,” researcher Siva K. Talluri, MD, clinical assistant professor, Department of Internal Medicine, McLaren Regional Medical Center, State University, told Healio.com. “The SEER database covers 26% of the population; these results are generalizable to the . cancer can occur in patients aged less than 50 years, and especially in patients with symptoms, it needs to be diagnosed [quickly]. Delaying diagnosis may result in patients presenting with advanced disease.”
For more information:
Talluri J. P858: Characteristics of Colorectal Cancer in the Young in the United States. Presented at: the 2012 American College of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting; Oct. 19-24, Las Vegas.