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A191 rectal cancer (CRC) after controlling for other risk factors. METHODS: We identified a cohort of 37,044 elderly Medicare beneficiaries with incident CRC between 2003 and 2009 who had colorectal surgery using the SEER-linked Medicare database. T2DM was identified using the ICD-9-CM (International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, and Clinical Modification) codes during the 12-months prior to incident diagnosis of CRC. CRC surgery was identified with procedure codes for colon resection, rectal resection, and other operations on the intestine including colostomy and ileostomy. If individuals with CRC had ICD-9-CM codes indicative of bowel perforation, peritonitis, or obstruction, they were considered to have emergency surgery. Chi-square tests and logistic regression were used to analyze the association between pre-existing T2DMand emergency surgery after adjustments for sex, race/ethnicity, age, cancer site, stage, region, and office visits in the 12 months prior to incident cancer. RESULTS: Unadjusted rates of emergency surgery were significantly lower among CRC patients with pre-existing T2DM compared to CRC patients without diabetes (9.8% vs.11.4%). This association, however, was not significant in adjusted analyses. CRC patients with highest number of annual office visits were significantly less likely than CRC patients with lowest number of annual office visits to receive emergency surgery

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