AIM: To highlight an increased incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) amongst young Indian adults. METHOD: A retrospective study of 305 cases of CRC admitted to SSKM Hospital, Kolkata, India during 2000-2008 was carried out. RESULTS: The ratio (0.64) of under-40 to above-40 CRC patients reported in this study is comparable to those from premier Oncology Centers in India (∼0.52) and is higher than those in the Indian National Cancer Registry (∼0.20) and international average (0.07). Distinctive tumour characteristics in younger patients including left-sided lesion (69.7%), presentation at an advanced (III/IV) stage (60%), poor histological differentiation (50%) and predominance of mucin-secreting adenocarcinoma (80%) are similar to those reported in the international literature. Some features are suggestive of hereditary non polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome, which may be a possible reason for the high proportion of young CRC patients. CONCLUSION: A high index of suspicion for CRC among young Indian adults is necessary.
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Gupta et al. (2010) studied this question.
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