Profiles and diagnostic patterns of colorectal cancers among 602 patients attending a tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia for suspected colic disease.

OBJECTIVES

Owing to the peaking rates and the multifaceted nature of colorectal cancers (CRC), understanding regional epidemiology and clinicopathological characteristics is critical. However, for the severe paucity in high-quality region-specific data, we aimed to determine the prevalence, distribution across age-gender, and identify common gastrointestinal pathological-features, and associations between patients' clinical-histories, definitive-diagnostic findings, and demographic-characteristics.

METHODS

We retrospectively examined records of 602 patients (January 2020-December 2024). Data included demographics, diagnoses (e.g. adenocarcinoma, tubulovillous adenoma with dysplasia [TVA], dysplasia, chronic active colitis, no malignancy, polyps, or differential diagnosis), biopsy-type, and relevant clinical history. Descriptive statistics and inferential tests such as Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U were used.

RESULTS

The cohort was 59.3% (n = 357) male and 40.7% (n = 245) female. Adenocarcinoma increased with age, peaking at 50-69 (53.0%) and females 70-89 (84.2%). TVA was prominent in males (30-49; 28.0%) and females (50-69; 36.1%). Overall, males had higher-frequencies of both adenocarcinoma (n = 137 vs. 95) and TVA (n = 73 vs. 59) compared to females. Rectosigmoid-biopsy was the most common method for diagnosing adenocarcinoma (42.4%), whereas colon-biopsy was more frequent for TVA (27.1%). The highest proportion of "No malignancy" diagnosis was in the 15-29 years age group (males: 65.4%, females: 64.7%). Clinical histories indicating "colon-tumor or polyps" were strongly associated with adenocarcinoma (47.0%) and TVA (30.3%). Significant associations were found between diagnosis and specimen-type and clinical-history and diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

This study highlights distinct age- and-gender-specific CRCs-patterns; particularly, prevalence of neoplastic-conditions in elderly with more frequent adenocarcinomas in males and variance of biopsy-sites by diagnosis. These support targeted-screening where more effective diagnostic and early treatment strategies are imperative in-line with the country's 2030-vision and UN's-Sustainable Development Goals-3.