Cancer of the colon and rectum

Colorectal cancer remains a significant medical illness and a leading cause of death in the geriatric population. Improvements in management include postoperative surgical adjuvant therapy for colonic cancer and postoperative chemotherapy and radiation for rectal cancer. Some advancement in the diagnostic and screening aspects has occurred. Management decisions in the older patients should follow the same principles as those in the younger age group, although preoperative medical evaluation is especially necessary to evaluate risk and optimize surgical, chemotherapeutic, and palliative outcomes. The best treatment for colon cancer, as for any malignancy, remains prevention. Therefore, additional efforts should focus on developing new and improved screening modalities (especially in the high-risk groups) to identify and remove premalignant lesions as well as to detect early-stage, and therefore potentially curable, large-bowel cancer.