Rating the environmental and genetic risk factors for colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a disease preventable in up to 50% of the patients by lifestyle modifications. The preventive strategy for the decrease in the incidence and mortality of CRC is based on understanding the relations between the environmental and genetic factors. The most important identified risk factors for CRC are aging, personal and familial history of CRC or adenomas, hereditary colon cancer syndromes, dietary patterns, and inflammatory bowel disease. The purpose of this review is to update data referring to environmental and genetic documented factors and CRC risk. Using data from the Medline database, we analyzed reports on CRC risk published between 2000 and 2010. We realized a classification taking into consideration the relative risk (RR) reported for each analyzed factor (RR ranged between 1 and 6.87). The highest RR were represented by the patients with distal advanced cancer (RR = 6.7) and those with high dysplasia adenomas (RR = 6.87). In the future, evaluation and optimisation of screening options will stay at the base of new prevention strategies that will be implemented based on the influence of risk factors identified in each population.