Concise update on colorectal cancer epidemiology

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is a type of gastrointestinal malignancy originating from either the colon or rectum. In this short report we provide a concise update on recent colorectal cancer statistics, especially concerning frequency, mortality, life expectancy and risk factors. Overall, colorectal cancer is the third more frequent malignant disease around the world (1.85 million of new cases/years; 10.2% of total malignancies), with 2.27% cumulative risk of onset between 0-74 years. The age-standardized rate increases by over 10-fold before the age of 50 up to ≥85 years, whilst men have ~50% enhanced risk compared to women (the 0-74 years risk is 2.75% in men and 1.83% in women, respectively). Although colorectal cancer screening has contributed to slightly reduce the number of diagnoses at advanced stages, most cases are only identified after symptoms onset. The number of worldwide deaths for colorectal cancer has been estimated at 0.88 million in 2018, representing ~1.4% of all-cause and ~8.9% of cancer-related deaths, with over 30% increase occurred during the past 15 years and a further 25% growth expected by the year 2030. The cumulative risk of dying for colorectal cancer is 0.92% between 0-74 years (1.14% in men and 0.72% in women, respectively). The 5-year cumulative survival is 64-67%, being 89-90% in patients with localized cancer, 70-71% in those with regional cancer, decreasing to 14-15% in those with distant cancer. The leading risk factors include familial history, pre-cancerous conditions, tall stature, physical inactivity, overweight, large intake of alcoholic beverages, high consumption of red or processed meat, as well as modest intake of dairy products and foods containing wholegrains or dietary fibre. The association between colorectal cancer and human development index suggests that reinforcement or timely establishment of preventive measures and accurate screening programs may be advisable, especially in countries undergoing considerable societal and economic changes.

Novel combination immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer: potent anti‐tumor effects with CD40 agonist and interleukin‐15 treatment

“…24 Of note, both colorectal cancer and prostate cancer have a significant better 5-year overall survival of 64% and 88%, respectively, underscoring the significance of our findings in pancreatic cancer with a 5-year survival of barely 8%. 29,30 Strikingly, in this study we also demonstrated that IL-15 potentiates CD40 agonist treatment, causing an 8fold dose reduction in one of the PDAC mouse models which has not been reported so far. This important dose reduction could be of great translational importance as lower doses might significantly decrease adverse events in patients.…”

Targeting Oncogenic Mutations in Colorectal Cancer using Cryptotanshinone

“…Total number of samples of the gene (1) For every gene in the CRC pathway, we computed this probability separately for healthy and tumor samples from the GSE44076 dataset and evaluated the ratio. We define the ratio of probabilities (ROP) as, ROP = P Gene is over-expressed in tumor samples P Gene is over-expressed in healthy samples (2) Clearly, a ratio greater than 1 (i.e. ROP > 1) suggests that a particular gene is operating in an aberrantly up-regulated fashion in the tumor samples as compared to the healthy samples.…”

Investigating potential molecular mechanisms of serum exosomal miRNAs in colorectal cancer based on bioinformatics analysis

“…[ 1 ] Although the 5-year relative survival rate was above 90% for patients with localized stage colorectal cancer, only about 14% for patients with distant tumor spread. [ 2 ] Therefore, early detection of CRC and understanding the molecular mechanism of distant metastases are urgently required. Several studies indicates detection of serum exosomes may be considered a non-invasive diagnosis of cancer and contribute to clarify the potential mechanisms for distant metastasis.…”