[Colorectal cancer before 45 years of age]

Colo-rectal cancer in young patients is a subject of interest for many reasons. Various studies are devoted to this subject but controversies regarding the stages, the evolution and the prognosis still remains. We present intermediate results, of an ongoing study, which is directed to those particular aspects of colon cancer of the patients less than 45 years of age in a region where the global incidence of the disease is one of the highest in the world. In the past five years, we have observed 602 patients with colon cancer. 23 of them (4%) were less than 45 years old. The age at diagnosis was 38 +/- 6 years. Two-thirds of the subjects were male. 13% had had predisposing conditions for colon cancer such as FAP, ulcerative colitis or Turcot syndrome; 50% had a positive familial history for cancer. Symptoms lasted for less than 3 months in two thirds of the patients. 15% had a right sided tumor, 38% were located in the sigmoid and 28.5% in the rectum. At diagnosis, the tumors were classified as follows: 32% Dukes B, 23% Dukes C and 40% were disseminated disease. Most of them were located in the rectum, but 43% of Dukes B lesions were located in ascending or transverse colon. Grading reveal moderately to poorly differentiated tumors in 3/4 of cases. 30% of patients received an adjuvant therapy. After two years, 70% of the patients were alive. None of them with Dukes A or B but one of the patients with Dukes C were dead.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)