Comparative survival rates in symptomatic peripheral vascular disease and colorectal cancer.

A comparative study of the accumulative five-year survival rates was made between patients with symptomatic peripheral vascular disease and patients with operable colorectal carcinoma. There was no significant difference between the two groups, but both had a significantly lower longevity than the normal population of the same average age (p less than 0.01). The patients' age at the time of treatment and their sex influenced survival in a similar manner in both colorectal cancer and peripheral vascular disease, there being no significant difference in the five-year survival curves in this comparison. A subset of individuals with colorectal cancer, those with Stage A lesions, were distinguished from the remainder. Their survival was significantly better than that of those patients with peripheral vascular disease (p less than 0.05) and was almost identical to that of the normal age-matched population.