Survival of colorectal cancer patients in the presence of competing-risk.

BACKGROUND

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is considered to be a main cause of malignancy-related death in the world, being commonly diagnosed in both men and women. It is the third leading cause of cancer dependent death in the world and there are one million new cases diagnosed per year. In Iran the incidence of colorectal cancer has increased during the last 25 years and it is the fifth cause of cancer in men and the third in women.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this article we analyzed the survival of 475 colorectal patients of Taleghani hospital in Tehran with the semi-parametric competing-risks model.

RESULTS

There were 55% male cases and at the time of the diagnosis most of the patients were between 48 and 67 years old. The probability of a patient death from colorectal cancer with survival of more than 25 years was about 0.4. Body mass index, height, tumour site and gender had no influence.

CONCLUSIONS

According to these data and by using semi-parametric competing-risks method, we found out that only age at diagnosis has a significant effect on these patient survival time.