Colorectal cancer trends by anatomic sides, age and staging. A twenty-yearstudy of 1412 Greek cases

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Greek patients, suffer ing from colorectal adenocarcinoma, showed the same changes in the side dis tribution, as has been observed in the patients of many western countries. We retrospectively analysed 1412 consecutive cases of colorectal adenocarci noma admitted to our institute over in a twenty-year period. The side distr ibution, the staging and the grade were evaluated in correlation with the a ge. We found that the number of patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma has steadily increased. The right-sided colonic carcinomas remained stable ove r the pears in the total number of cases, however, for the elderly patients (age > 65 years), there was trend of gradual but steady increase in the in cidence. We did not observe any evidence of earlier diagnosis in recent yea rs. We conclude that a delayed but similar trend in the incidence and distr ibution of colorectal adenocarcinoma is present in Greek patients. The main tenance of the traditional dietary habits could change the pattern.