Colorectal carcinoma in the first decade of life: a systematic review

The aim of this study is to better understand the main aspects related to colorectal carcinoma diagnosed in the first 10 years of life, through a systematic review.

We carried out a bibliographic search in PubMed and LILACS, focusing on identifying publications or case reports about colorectal carcinoma in the first 10 years of life. The bibliographical analysis was made in two steps. During the first phase, we excluded those articles whose titles or abstracts did not correspond with the objective settled. Publications without abstract were also included in this phase. During the second phase, we look at the articles and evaluated their content, selecting the cases with colorectal cancer under 10 years old.

From 3880 publications, 132 were selected in the first phase and 84 were evaluated in the second phase. Based on these conditions, 33 articles have cases presented which 4 articles were case reviews and 29 were case reports. Duplicated cases were excluded from the analysis. Fifty-nine cases were described in English and Latin literature. There is an apparent similar proportion between the sexes, and the mean age was 8.6 years old. The main localization was the rectum and sigmoid (45.8 %). Pathologic findings showed that 86.4 % were adenocarcinoma. These tumors are frequently advanced at diagnosis. The Kaplan-Meier 60-month overall survival was 15.3 %. Dukes classification represents a factor related to survival (p = 0.03).

In children, colorectal carcinoma presents distinctive characteristics, which determines poor survival.