Is it Time to Revise the Treatment of Early Colorectal Cancers? A Danish Point of View

Birgitte Brandstrup*

Received: December 29, 2017;   Published: January 10, 2018

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.02.000647

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Abstract

In the western part of the world, cancer in the colon and the rectum is the third most common cancer with an incidence of 1.4 million new cases in 2012 [1]. Accordingly, the number of colonoscopies performed on suspicion of cancer is large and because of the initiation of screening programs for blood in the stool also increasing. The screening programs for colorectal cancer have downgraded the majority of the tumors found from the cancer stages T3-4 to T1-2 [2,3]. And thus increased the number of potentially endoscopically removable T1 tumors. In addition, the demography of the population is changing, with a greater number of elderly patients with greater probability of having co-existing diseases. The medical co-existing diseases play a major role in the risk of adverse outcomes including death following the surgical resection of the colon or the rectum irrespective the procedure is performed laparoscopically or by open surgery [4-6]. At the same time, endoscopist’s are becoming increasingly skilled in the removal of large colorectal polyps by the technique of endoscopic mucosa resection (EMR) or endoscopic mucosa dissection (ESD).

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