Endoscopic, epidemiologic and clinic characterization of the colorectal cancer in geriatric patients

Abstract

The colorectal cancer is a serious health problem because of its high incidence. In Cuba, this disease is the fourth neoplasia in order of frequency with a rate of 17.1 per 100 000 inhabitants. With the objective of determining the precocious diagnosis of this complaint we carried out a prospective, longitudinal and descriptive study among geriatric patients with colorectal disease assisting to consultation at the policlinic Carlos Verdugo of Matanzas in the period from January 2006 to December 2007. The studied parameters were age, genre, risk facts, presentation forms, localization, and endoscopic diagnosis of the disease. The results showed predominance of female sex (52,1 %), in ages from 60 to 69 years old (59.3 %), predominating risk facts like familiar antecedents (13,5 %), idiopathic ulcerative colitis (8.1 %), and an inadequate diet (35.1 %). The most used diagnostic method was colonoscopy (18 patients), with predominance of the rectosigmoidal cancer (15 cases), being the polypoid one the most common endoscopic kind (13 %). We concluded that generally there is not a precocious diagnosis of the colorectal cancer among geriatric patients, leading to a decrease of the healing possibilities and surviving of these patients.