Dr. Khan on Retrospective Analysis of Demographics in CRC and Gastric Cancer

Amir Khan, MD, surgical oncologist, City of Hope, discusses a large retrospective database analysis on colorectal cancer (CRC) and gastric cancer presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

The study looked at patients who had a diagnosis of gastric cancer or CRC between the ages of 18 and 90 from 2000 to 2012 within the California Cancer Registry, which is linked to an inpatient database within California, explains Khan. The basic dataset covered younger and older adults in both malignancies.

The study examined close to 120,000 patients in the CRC group and nearly 20,000 patients in the gastric cancer group. A univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to look for differences between the younger and older patients in terms of demographic features, clinical features, and histopathologic characteristics of their tumors, as well as survival outcomes, says Khan.

There was no vague cutoff for early onset cancer in young adults and older adults. Instead, patients were stratified into 4 groups based on age: 18 to 40 years, 41 to 49 years, 50 to 64 years, and 65 to 90 years. The 3 older groups were compared with the youngest group to determine differences, concludes Khan.