Comparison of general characteristics of female and male patients with follow-up colon cancer in our medical oncology polyclinic

Aim and Background: Colon Cancer (CC) is seen in both men and women in third degree. Generally, the incidence of over 50 years age is increasing. Despite progresses that are achieved in diagnosis and treatment, it is still the second in cancer-related deaths. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the general characteristics of patients who were followed-up and treated with CC diagnosis to oncology polyclinic in Bolu. Materials and Methods: It was planned to take patients with CC who applied to medical oncology polyclinic between 01.02.2012 and 01.01.2017. The data belong to patients, were retrospectively analysed through the records of hospital computer and patients' files. Patients' age, sex, body mass index, a primary site of the tumour, pathologic diagnosis, grade, state, location of metastasis, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen (CA 19-9) levels and the treatments that were applied, were recorded. The patients who are under age of 18 and had inadequate registration and file data were not taken into this study. Statistical calculations were made by using SPSS (version 20). Results: Among these dates, 329 (16.4%) of the 2007 patients who were referred to the medical oncology polyclinic with the cancer diagnosis were found to have CC. 130 (39.5%) of the patients were female and 199 (60.5%) were male who were taken into this study. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (p <0.05). The median age of the patients was 64 (minimum 26- maximum 87) years. In women, the median age was 64 (minimum 30- maximum 87) years, and in males, the median age was 64 (minimum 26- maximum 87) years. There was no statistically significant difference between the ages of women and men (p> 0.05). In the study, the number of patients who were over 65 years old was 147 (44.7%) and the number of patients who were under 65 years old 182 (55.3%). There was no statistically significant difference between the ages of women and men (p> 0.05). It was found that there were 89 (27.1%) the patients who were overweight, and there were 47 (14.3%) patients who were obese. When compared the men and women, it was found that there was a statistically significant in terms of body mass index (p <0.05). When assessed according to location of tumor, with the most to the right most sequence, the data was like that; rectum 136 (41.3%), sigmoid colon 85 (25.8%), cecum 31 (9.4%), exiting colon 29 (8.8%), descending colon 28 (8.5%) and transverse colon 14 (4.3%). There was no statistically significant difference in terms of location of primary tumor between the groups (p> 0.05). When assessed in terms of pathologic diagnosis, it was found that there were 317 (96.4%) patients whose pathologic diagnosis were adenocarcinoma. In terms of pathologic diagnosis, there was no statistically significant difference between these two groups (p>0.05). When evaluated according to the grade, it was seen there were grade 2 at most in 160 (48.6%) patients. When compared two groups in terms of their grade, there was no statistically significant difference (p> 0.05). When evaluated according to the stages, it was found there were 119 (36.2%) patients who had stage 3. There was a statistically significant difference between women and men (p <0.05). When assessed according to the location of metastasis, it was seen that liver in 42 (12.8%) patients, lung in 1 (2.1%) patient, peritoneum in 1 (0.3%) patient, over in 1 (0.3%) patient, bone in 1 (0.3%) patient and metastasis of uterine endometrium in 1 (0.3%) patient. Also, there were 19 (5.8%) patients who had multiple metastases. During diagnosis between men and women groups, in terms of the presence of distant metastases, there was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05). According to the Ras mutation analysis, 31 (32.6%) of the patients were K-ras wild N-ras wild, 24 (25.3%) of them were not K-ras wild N-ras, 40 (42.1%) were K-ras mutant and 234 (71.1%) of ras were unknown. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups according to ras mutation (p> 0.05). When the patients were evaluated according to CEA and CA 19-9 levels, there were 67 (20.4%) patients who had high level and 262 (79.6%) patients, respectively, who had a normal level. There was no statistically significant difference between male and female patient groups (p> 0.05). After getting a diagnosis of CC, there were 301 (91.5%) patients who had undergone a surgical operation. It was found that the 75 patients in the metastatic stage, 47 (62.7%) had palliative surgery and only 28 (37.3%) patients were unable to undergo a surgical operation. There was no statistically significant difference between male and female patient groups according to surgical operation (p> 0.05). It was seen that there were 245 (74.5%) patients who received chemotherapy treatment by the reason of CC and 38 (11.6%) patients who have chemotherapy indications but refusing the treatment and 46 (14%) patients without chemotherapy indications. There was no statistically significant difference between male and female patient groups (p> 0.05). Conclusion: In conclusion, our study showed that CC is more common in men than women, and the majority of cases are over 50 years of age. It was found that obesity in female gender was found to be more related to CC. Rectosigmoid region was the most common site of involvement and grade 2 adenocarcinoma was the most common histologic subgroup. It was seen that the most frequent stage 3 patients were diagnosed during the diagnosis, and the most frequent site of metastasis was the lung. The excess of rectosigmoid region involvement was remarkable in terms of being diagnosed by physical examination and rectosigmoidoscopy. Even in the advanced stage, surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy developments seem to contribute to the positive results of the day. In order to avoid data loss, prospective studies have to be done. Keywords: Colon cancer, retrospective study, demographic features