thesis
Clinical Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer in the Netherlands: studies of variation and trends with the Eindhoven Cancer Registry
- Publication date
- 24 October 2007
- Publisher
- The large bowel can be divided into the colon, the rectosigmoid, and rectum. The colon
starts where the small bowel ends. It is 1.5-1.8 metres long when stretched. The
rectum forms the final 10-15 cm of the large bowel, opening to the outside at the anus.
The rectosigmoid is the transitional zone between the colon and the rectum 1.
In the Netherlands, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer (14%) among
males, after prostate (21%) and lung cancer (16%), and it is the second most frequent
tumor (13%) among females after breast cancer (33%). In 2003, almost 10.000
patients were diagnosed with the disease; in this year, 4.500 patients died of the
disease 1. The incidence in the Netherlands compared to other European countries, is
relatively high, and ranks in the top-10 2. Worldwide, colorectal cancer accounted for
about 1 million of new cancer diagnoses in 2002, representing nearly 10% of all new
cancers among both men and women 2. It occurs more frequently in the industrialised
world. The disease rarely occurs before age 40, the risk of colorectal cancer becomes
highest around age 70 1. The lifetime risk to develop colorectal cancer is 5.6% in the
industrialised world 1, 3. As a percentage of total mortality, the risk of dying from
colorectal cancer in