[Pathology and prognosis of colorectal cancer in Chinese young patients--an analysis of 319 cases. National Cooperative Group on Pathology and Prognosis of Colorectal Cancer].

The clinicopathologic factors that may influence the survival rate of colonic cancer were analyzed in 319 cases under 30 years old. These patients comprised 10.1% of 3147 cases collected from 13 institutions in the cooperative group. The 5 year survival rate was 40.1% which is apparently higher than that reported in the western literature. Although similar in the primary site of the tumor between the young and elderly patients, their histopathologic features and the number of metastasis in the lymph nodes are different. In the young patients, the main pathologic patterns are moderately or poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma but they are well or moderately differentiated in the elderly. The number of lymph nodes involved in the young patients is more than that in the elderly. These result in poorer prognosis.