Abstract
Although colorectal cancer is not a common cancer in Egypt, the age distribution of the disease shows that a high proportion occurs in children and adults under 40 years of age. We reviewed the records of 1,608 colorectal cancer patients treated in 4 cancer hospitals in Egypt during a period of 3 to 10 years. The hospitals in which about 85% of all colorectal cancer cases in Egypt were seen included Egypt's 2 major cancer centers, The National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Cairo and Tanta Cancer Center (TCC) in the mid‐Nile Delta region, and 2 major university hospitals, Assiut University in South Egypt and Ain Shams University in Cairo. Our review showed that patients younger than 40 years represented 35.6% of all patients in the 4 cancer hospitals, and that these rates were similar among the hospitals and for the years reviewed. The male‐to‐female ratio increased from 1.0 to 1.7 for the age groups ranging from 0–9 and 30–39 years, and increased from 1.0 to 1.5 for the age groups ranging from 40–49 to over 60 years. More than half of all patients had rectal tumors, and about 90% of the cancers were adenocarcinomas; 30.6% of patients younger than 40 years, compared with 13.8% of older patients, had mucin‐producing tumors. This study confirmed the occurrence of a high colorectal cancer rate in young Egyptians, and it opens the door to future epidemiologic studies to identify causes and risk factors of this disease pattern in Egypt. Int. J. Cancer, 71:26–30, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.