Colorectal cancer survival at an oncologic center in Colombia. A historic cohort study

Introduction and aims: In Colombia, cancer of the colon is the third most frequent cancer in relation to incidence and mortality. Five-year survival depends on stage at diagnosis, albeit that rate is not known for the country. The aim of the present study was to characterize the overall survival and disease-free survival rates in an adult population with colorectal cancer treated at an oncology center in Medellin, Colombia. Materials and methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted. The case records of patients with a histologic diagnosis of colorectal cancer, seen within the time frame of 2011 and 2015, were reviewed. The overall survival and disease-free survival curves were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: A total of 824 (54.9%) patients with cancer of the colon and 676 (45.1%) with cancer of the rectum were treated. Mean patient age was 63.3 years, female sex predominated (56.3%), and 98.1% of the tumors were adenocarcinomas. The majority of the lesions were stage iu (31.9% in the colon and 35.5% in the rectum) at the time of diagnosis. Surgery was the most frequent treatment in the colon (85.2%) and radiotherapy was the most frequent in the rectum (75.4%). Overall survival at the median follow-up (27.3 months) was 66.7% for cancer of the colon and 63.9% for cancer of the rectum. Disease-free survival at the median follow-up (18.6 months in colon and 14.9 in rectum) was 72.5 and 68.9%, respectively. Conclusions: The clinical characteristics and treatment of patients were similar to those found in other studies. Two-year survival was higher than in other Colombian reports and 5-year survival was lower than that observed in developed countries. (C) 2018 Asociacion Mexicana de Gastroenterologia. Published by Masson Doyma Mexico S.A. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).