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Colorectal cancer prognosis worse in younger patients

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The prognosis of colorectal cancer is worse in patients aged 35 years or younger compared with older patients, according to data presented at the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons 2015 Annual Meeting.

In order to elucidate the clinical characteristics and prognosis of young patients with colorectal cancer, researchers performed a retrospective cohort study of 995 patients (without a family history of colorectal cancer) who underwent curative surgery at a university hospital in China from January 2003 to September 2009. They grouped patients based on age and compared their clinical characteristics and survival outcomes; group A included the 6.8% of the cohort aged 18 to 35 years and group B included the 93.2% aged 36 to 75 years.

Overall, 30.9% of group A had right-sided colon cancer compared with 19.6% of group B (P = .026), 13.2% vs. 5.9% had mucinous tumor (P = .034), 16.2% vs. 4.9% had poorly differentiated tumor (P < .001) and 50% vs. 35.5% had stage III disease (P = .016). Five-year overall survival rates were 66.4% in group A compared with 75.8% in group B (P = .01), cancer-specific survival rates were 68.2% vs. 77.1% (P = .008) and disease-free survival rates were 58.6% vs. 71.7% (P = .023). Age 35 years or younger was found in multivariate analysis to be an independent factor for prognosis of 5-year overall survival (OR = 1.76; 95% CI, 1.09-2.84), cancer-specific survival (OR = 1.96; 95% CI, 1.12-3.17) and disease-free survival (OR = 1.62; 95% CI, 1.02-2.58). Compared with patients in group B with stage III disease, patients in group A with stage III disease had worse 5-year overall survival (P = .007), cancer-specific survival (P = .01) and disease-free survival (P = .039).

Patients aged 35 years or younger have worse colorectal cancer prognosis, especially with stage III disease, the researchers concluded. – by Adam Leitenberger 

Reference:

Zhao LY, et al. Abstract S059. Presented at: Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons Annual Meeting; April 15-18, 2015, Nashville, Tenn.

Disclosure: Relevant financial disclosures were not provided.